RIS - Competitive RP-0 career

[leudaimon]

@soundnfury created a mod for competitive non-simultaneous multiplayer, and me, him, @NathanKell, @pap1723 and @rsparkyc are testing it in a RP-0 career. I"ll detail my playthrough here.

General strategy

I usually play my careers with fast development in mind, so I did not need to change a lot in order to play RIS. My main strategy is to take contracts aggressively, and use the advance credits to put into upgrades as much as possible. Unless I'm saving money for a building upgrade, I keep a minimum cash at hand and everything else goes into upgrades. I also try to grab as much science as possible, and take the nodes by science cost (just not take solids or anything related to planes besides the first supersonic node), at least in the early game up to then node prices get above 20. This way I get the most free upgrades in the fastest way possible.

For upgrade allocation, I usually put the 17 initial ones (I always buy one upgrade with the starting money) in a proportion like 10-12 for the VAB and the remaining in science. For building upgrades, I always start with the mission control building, to be able to get more than 3 contracts. If possible, I grab both it and the tracking station as soon as I get the first satellite contract (i.e., as soon as I hit the karmán line).

 

First flights, sounding rockets and karmán line

My first flight was a WAC without the Tiny Tim booster. My intention was to get at least science enough to unlock the 1 point supersonic flight. I was Agathorned in this first flight, but fortunately all I needed was to get above the ground, so everything was OK.

(No screenshot of this flight)

My second flight was a successful flight into space in a boosted WAC-Corporal, breaking the Karmán line. The flight was simple, and I reached 180km of altitude, grabing a nice amount of science. My tail fins exploded in the end of the flight, but as I was spin-stabilized, had no further consequence.

As everything went ok and I had a bunch of points into VAB, I managed to be the first, and got an aditional 60k from that. This also gave me some good science points for science in space, so I managed to grab most of the 5/10 point techs. After I completed this contract, I took the first satellite contract, and (IIRC) also the brake the sound barrier and the new one that requires you to recover from a suborbital flight (this is a prerequisite for the crewed karmán line contract). This bunch of money and science allowed me to grab both the mission control and tracking station, and apply a good number of upgrades to the VAB and R&D:

I launched another WAC, and then moved to recoverable, larger craft meant to, first, make bio samples from low and high atmosphere, and then take one bio sample into space and complete the contract to recover from a suborbital flight. These flights also had the objective of flight-proving the RD-101 engine, which will be used in my crewed suborbital flight aboard a X-1 "capsule", in what I call a Bumper-crew vehicle. But I'm getting ahead of myself, here follows the bio sample designs:

Bio-sample atmospheric:

Bio-sample space:

 

[pap1723]

You are all dirty cheaters. At my current rate, the Soviets will beat me to a Human Moon Landing.

[leudaimon]

Crewed supersonic and suborbital and multi-stage sounding rockets

My cautiousness of testing the RD-101 twice before putting a poor human on top of it cost me the first for suborbital flight. Regardless, I lauched my crewed bumper rocket into a suborbital trajectory sucessfully, gaining more science and a bunch of money from the contracts and record-like contracts.

The Bumper-crew is not much different from the craft I used for the bio samples, just with a X-1 cockpit instead of the bio sample capsule. Also, IIRC I added some lead ballast to reduce TWR, as I had plenty of delta-v and didn't want to kill my first Brazillianaut. By the way, forgot to mention, I'm doing this campaign from a custom launch site in the Alcântara Launch Center, in the coast of Brazil, at just 2° S of latitude.

 

After that, I launched some higher altitude sounding rockets, with multiple stages. The plan was to grab science from biomes farther away, and also get the speed and altitude record contracts. I also launched another crewed suborbital flight, just for the money from crewed sub-orbital + planes high.

First, I built a proper Bumper-WAC. Unfortunately, I forgot to activate the auto-screenshot mod during the launch, so I have only a picture of it in the VAB:

Next, I built a three-stage sounding rocket, with the RD-101 as first stage, a 3-WAC second stage and a single-WAC third stage. My objective with it was to reach the pole, and possibly some other biome in southern South America. Besides, this vehicle is similar in structure the my orbital launcher, as you will see in the next post. With changes in engines, I'll launch a similar vehicle in orbit. The amount of delta-v here could be stretched to make an orbital-rate vehicle, but without guidance I am not talented enough to put it in orbit. The screenshots of it are also bad (night launch):

http://imgur.com/dpAVz2T

 

Edited June 5, 2017 by leudaimon

[StupidAndy]

this is the kind of multiplayer I'd like to have

good job

[soundnfury]

Further information for those interested:

• The mod and its forum thread.
• A writeup of my playthrough.
• @NathanKell is streaming his playthrough on Twitch and uploading the videos to YouTube.
• Running 'scoreboard' of the game on the multiplayer server.

[leudaimon]

First satellite!

After the sounding rockets described in the previous post, I finally unlocked the Early orbital rocketry node. This node unlocks all engines I intended to use in my orbital vehicle. The design is pretty simple:

• 1st stage is a RD-103M
• 2nd stage is an AJ-10, with RCS thrusters for roll control and also to adjust attitude during a short coasting. Avionics (procedural!) for the whole craft is also in this stage.
• 3rd stage is a XASR-1, an unguided kick stage spin-stabilized.

Delta-v is in the short side, with 8800ish m/s, but given the high TWR and fast ascent, gravity losses are minimal. It's worth mentioning that only at this point did I realise I should be rushing the construction of my vehicles, which I started doing quite a lot. Unfortunately, I have pictures only on the VAB and of a simulation, probably didn't activate the auto-screenshot during the real thing:

After the successful launch, I accepted all three lunar contracts: flyby, impact and orbit, and also the first polar orbit contract. With this bunch of money, I grabbed the launch pad upgrade and got more upgrade points. Given the amount of R&D points @NathanKell got in his game, I have been getting a larger proportion of those than I usually get compared to VAB points to keep up.

I then tried to send another satellite into orbit to further test the engines, which proved to be a good idea, because I had a failure. As soon as I got the next tech node, for Avionics, I started working on my lunar vehicle.

 

Aim for the moon (but fail)

When I got the first avionics node, I designed my unguided TLI lunar vehicle. I have done it before, getting consistent impct contracts with it. However, I had serious problems doing it in this game, with many problems with precession. Anyway, my first design was the following:

• TLI stage: A 20in. core, which comes with radiation and micrometeorite experiments and weights only 10kg, with an antenna and additional experiments, attached to two sets of baby sargeants (3 and then 1). These give just about the amount of delta-v necessary for TLI, but depends on guidance and spin stabilization from the 3rd stage.
• 3rd stage: a cluster with two XASR-1s
• 2nd stage: a cluster with two AJ-10s
• 1st stage: the RD-103M

All stages were burning at maximum (or even a couple seconds above) rated times, so this was a pretty risky vehicle. Regardless, I had just one failure from TF.

I don't have a pic of this vehicle on the VAB, but I do have of the launch:

In this launch, I reached orbit in a very good orbital plane, quite close to the moon's. However, the solids started a very strong precession, so even tough I made it to the moon's SOI, didn't get even close to the moon. It was worth some science though.

To try to reduce the precession problem, I redesigned this vehicle with a liquid TLI stage, so instead of the two sets of baby sargeants, I used one XASR-1 with a short burn for lunar transfer:

I tried three flights with this vehicle. In the first one I reached 3000 Km of Periselene, and completed the lunar flyby contract (first again!), but stayed far away from impact, because of precession again. Actually, this mission came out quite similar to Luna 1, given I went into interplanetary space after the flyby:

Regarding the other two, one was a failure, and the other also yielded a lunar flyby. With this second flyby completed, no more lunar flyby contracts are produced. In this mean time, I also used the LV I had developed for the first satellite, and changed the payload from the sounding rocket core to the 20in core, and aimed for a much higher polar orbit for the polar orbit contract. At this point, some techs were unlocked, especially the rocketry one, which unlocked the RD-107/108 and the RD-0105. With these engines I moved to another LV, which I'll describe next.

Edited June 6, 2017 by leudaimon

[leudaimon]

New LV

With the new engines unlocked, I started developing a new LV. It's a derivative of R7/Luna vehicles, which I intend to use, maybe with some modifications, for most earth satellite contracts, Lunar orbiters and landers, and also LEO initial missions with the Mercury capsule. I always tend to prefer soviet engines, because they have such a higher thrust, delta-v and also cost less than the American engines at the same time.

Given RD-107 and RD-108 engines have separate entry costs, I decided, for now, to skip the RD-107, and use RD-108s also as boosters. I also unlocked the RD-0105 to use as second stage, and the AJ-10 series (Mid) for the infinite restarts of the AJ-10 104D. I imediately started TF R&D on these engines as, even tough I have been doing it for all engines I’m using, in this case my first launch of them is the lunar orbiter.

I tried a design without boosters in this LV, but that was not possible. As I don’t have solids, I had to use two RD-108s as boosters, and the LV is very overpowered for my payload. Regardless, this is the design, which I might keep mostly unchanged, just varying the number of boosters, for most of my immediately future missions:

• Boosters: 2 RD-108s, burning for 1m20s
• First stage sustainer: 1 RD-108 burning for 3m15s
• Second stage: 1 RD-0105 burning for 3m45s

For my 2T lunar orbiter/impactor, it yields 9480 m/s delta-v, so with this design I can launch even a heavier payload (especially if final orbital insertion is done by the third stage).

This vehicle proved quite difficult for the ascent guidance of mechjeb to control. I don’t know why, but I needed to add a bunch of tail fins, to the point of having it so aerodynamically stable the gravity turn ends up much slower than it should, and I have some large steering losses. However, as I had a large excess delta-v, this is better than losing control at maxQ.

 

Lunar orbiter/impactor

My lunar orbiter/impactor is a pretty simple design. A controlled TLI and lunar orbital insertion stage, with a procedural upper stage avionics (I maxed out utilization to reduce energy comsumption) and 60 MWh (60000 EC) of battery, to last 10 days, topped by a 20in core, with an unguided solid kick motor to be fired retrograde at the orbital aposelene, whichi then goes ahead and impacts the moon. For this kick motor I used an almost empty baby sergeant (if I had some even lighter stuff I would have taken). It’s possible to see this spacecraft from afar in the VAB in the pic above.

So far, I have done one flight of this LV/spacecraft combination, which was perfectly successful, and allowed me to keep the leadership over @NathanKell :). Some nice pics of the mission:

Just after launch I noticed that the additional antennas and experiments I added to the orbiter, to be able to keep using it until the batteries were gone after the impactor was detached, were added in the wrong place, and were jettisoned with the fairing base. I’ll correct it in the next launches.

My next immediate flights will be another Lunar orbiter/impactor for the contract money, and then an orbital return vehicle I intend to build derived from this. I’ll add a parachute to the 20in core instead of the kick motor, and I’ll use the TLI/Lunar insertion (maybe a little enlarged as I have spare delta-v in the LV) stage as a boostback intended to bleed half of the orbital speed.

 

Future strategy

With this I have reached the point I’m at right now, so I’ll sketch the strategy I intend to follow from here.

If these two next missions I have planned are completed in the correct time, I’ll probably also have the first reentry on RIS, and just at the time stability/early probes will unlock. I intend then to go for the next “easy” objectives: First GEO and First lunar landing.

To unlock first GEO I intend to launch the first solar and geosyncronous satellite, completing both contracts with one satellite, and then go for the GEO satellite. I intend to put a dish antenna in it, and look for a hole in ground station coverage to use it as a relay station.

In the meantime, I’ll also design a lunar lander. I’ll probably need four boosters to lift this spacecraft instead of the two in my current LV, as a lot of delta-v is necessary. With the stability/early probes node I’ll be able to use solar power and an agena-like proc. avionics as the TLI/Orbital insertion, and a beefy procedural probe core for the lander. I intend to release the lander with a solid kick stage, detach it, and then make a controlled landing that won’t demand so much delta-v after the speed reduction caused by the solid kick stage.

Tech-wise, I’ll go for basic capsules now, to try the first orbit mission. There are some milestones that give a good bunch of money for altitude and time in space that I also intend to complete with a simple mercury capsule and my currently developed LV. Up to here I have the strategy already planned, but then for later stuff I’ll have to adjust to what the other players are doing and achieving.

[leudaimon]

LV and probe development

With the unlocking of stability/early probes I got cotrollable probe cores, and also upper-stage avionics with shutdown capability, as well as solar panels. With this set of tools it is possible to create some real satellites, to complete most earth satellite contracts, especially GEO, and also a lunar lander. However, to achieve those objectives I decided to design other variations of my R7 based LV. A lighter one, for LEO payloads, and a heavy one for my lunar orbiter/lander. I started by streamlining the LV I had designed before, correcting the relationships among stages and changing the avionics for the new ones just unlocked. Also, I purchased the RD-107, now that @NathanKell fixed its entry cost, and used it as booster instead of the RD-108. In the current configuration I can lift about 3T into LEO.

For the light version of my LV, I removed the boosters. My objective was to have a LV rated for up to 1T, maybe a little more, into LEO. With a longer burn of the RD-0105, this is easily achievable with the RD-108 as main stage, with a reasonable-to-high starting TWR. The design is as follows (burn times and delta-v in the pic):

The heavy version looks a lot like a real Luna rocket, with 4 RD-107 boosters and the RD-105 (I’ll soon change it for an RD-0109, as survivability is almost done). This monster can lift about 6T into LEO, but has a pretty high price tag (In this pic, the TLI stage and lunar orbiter/lander are on top of it):

Orbital reentry and GSS

At this point, my reentry vehicle was ready, so I went for it. Getting this contract done before survivability is good because then I can get the crewed orbit contract, which offers a very nice starting cash. As I said above, this vehicle is a derivative of my initial lunar orbiter, with the TLI/orbital insertion stage working as a strong boostback. I stretched it to increase my boostback even more, and added a parachute to my lunar impactor, and it was done:

I moved ahead and launched my first solar powered satellite into a nearly polar orbit (100°) to also complete the first sun-synchronous satellite contract. For this launch I used the light LV, and built a satellite with a procedural probe core, the gravity sensor to achieve the low space science, and added RCS and plenty hydrazine to adjust the orbit. The LV with satellite picture is above, but the numbers are wrong because I was simulating the LV capability with lead ballast. I have a few pics of the launch:

Both flights were eventless, and after completion I used the advance money from crewed orbital, as well as other contract advances I had been accumulating as well as the money from these contracts, to make a pretty bold, and perhaps career destroying move: I bought the R&D building upgrade. With a bunch of science accumulating, I was starting to run low on things to research with less than 100 points of cost, and this upgrade will take ages to complete (600k credits!!). Thus, I thought it better to go ahead and start it sooner rather than later.

 

Lunar lander

For the lunar lander, I decided to also make a orbiter/lander mission, similar to the orbiter/impactor I had done before. This allowed me to use the gravity perturbation experiment to collect a bunch of science, both on earth in high space and in the moon. My lander is the usual design I think most people use to rush a lunar landing: a probe core with RCS and hydrazine for a controlled landing, with an unguided kick motor to make the initial reduction in orbital speed. In hindsight, this lander has a too low TWR, so I had a hard time landing it, but it looks nice anyway:

To get into LEO, I used the heavy LV I designed earlier and used my AJ-10 TLI/orbital insertion stage atop it. Now with a more efficient avionics core it does not need a huge battery to work. I inserted into a very low polar orbit, to use the orbiter to collect all the lunar science I could

 

The actual landing was more complex. I spin-stabilized and used the solid kick to put me into an impact trajectory. After decouple I removed spin and started burning to bleed the remaining speed. As TWR was low, I had to burn mostly down instead of retrograde, to be able to remove all horizontal speed before impact:

I'm now ready to launch my GEO satellite, and I'll have the time for another lunar landing before going for my first crewed orbit (which I expect @NathanKell to beat me). I increased the number of baby sargeants a little for next launch, to reduce the TWR necessary, and might go for a direct descent instead of lunar orbit -> landing.

 

[Maxsimal]

What were the ground rules for this?