Various questions

[prim]

hey guys. love this game, really challenging and educational, but let me ask you a question. i know there is a lot of math and physics involved here but for the sake of argument, say delta-v ... do i really need to know all this and be able to calculate it and know the value for specific stages of my rocket in order to be successful to say, go to Mun or Duna or wherever or does this fall more under the "advanced" category which obviously real rocket scientists need to know, but for this game ... mandatory or not?

 

heh i feel like i'm back in school, i don't mind learning, i love this stuff, but it's really complicated and it won't be quick. thanks.

Edited June 25, 2017 by prim

[Red Iron Crown]

9 minutes ago, prim said:

hey guys. love this game, really challenging and educational, but let me ask you a question. i know there is a lot of math and psychics involved here but for the sake of argument, say delta-v ... do i really need to know all this and be able to calculate it and know the value for specific stages of my rocket in order to be successful to say, go to Mun or Duna or wherever or does this fall more under the "advanced" category which obviously real rocket scientists need to know, but for this game ... mandatory or not?

 

heh i feel like i'm back in school, i don't mind learning, i love this stuff, but it's really complicated and it won't be quick. thanks.

Welcome aboard!

There are many KSP players who do fine without any calculation and numbers, they're not strictly necessary for the game. The math becomes useful when you want to get efficient about things, or try things that are just barely possible.

[prim]

16 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:

Welcome aboard!

There are many KSP players who do fine without any calculation and numbers, they're not strictly necessary for the game. The math becomes useful when you want to get efficient about things, or try things that are just barely possible.

 

ah sweet thanks man .. i am sure i will get better at it as time goes on, but for now. let's just say it's very complicated i'm dealing with much more basic things, if you don't mind me asking ...

say you take off from the ground, every time it displays a message "No target selected" ... how do I select a target? I tried "m" going to map mode, and licking left and right on all objects and it does nothing ...

another question, can you make parachutes open automatically? would it make sense to put them on early stages of the rocket so the debris lands safely for recollection?

 

also, i saw people use some tool to calculate trajectories to the mun and other planets ... is this in-game or add on because i haven't seen anything of the sort ..

many thanks.

some other silly questions i have:

- are liquid engines even good/mean for lower atmosphere or are solid fuel engines better for first stages ?

- i am avoiding aeroplanes for now, since it's a whole new field, i can achieve, say going to and land on mun and go back, and later play with aeroplanes or are they necessary for early success?

- the crane .. when you have a rocket on the launchpad... can you make the crane ... longer? sometimes lower stages of the rocket are too wide and crane gets in between and messes with launch ...

- is there a button for show/hide all instruments? sometimes when u have a few termometers and barometers it's annonying clicking them all and rotating the rocket to even reach them sometimes .... one button would solve this little problem, does it exist?

i have many more, but these have been bugging me from the start ... also about auto moderation? i know it prevents spam, and i don't mind but i assume at some point you can get a "not a spammer" status with auto approved comments?

Edited June 25, 2017 by prim

[sevenperforce]

1 hour ago, prim said:

hey guys. love this game, really challenging and educational, but let me ask you a question. i know there is a lot of math and physics involved here but for the sake of argument, say delta-v ... do i really need to know all this and be able to calculate it and know the value for specific stages of my rocket in order to be successful to say, go to Mun or Duna or wherever or does this fall more under the "advanced" category which obviously real rocket scientists need to know, but for this game ... mandatory or not?

I almost never calculate the dV of my individual stages; I know generally how far my rocket is going to get for a given fuel load.  If you start playing sandbox, you can just overengineer your stages and make sure you have more than enough fuel for each portion of your trip. Then save more precise calculations for later on in the game, or for playing career.

[Snark]

Hi @prim, I've taken the liberty of moving your questions into a new thread in Gameplay Questions, since this is mostly questions about the game.   (The Science & Spaceflight forum is mainly for discussion about real-life science stuff, not KSP.)  I titled the thread "Various questions", you can change that if you like by clicking the "edit" button on your original post at the top of this thread.

Anyway, your latest questions:

2 hours ago, prim said:

say you take off from the ground, every time it displays a message "No target selected" ... how do I select a target? I tried "m" going to map mode, and licking left and right on all objects and it does nothing ...

If you go to map mode, you can left-click on another ship, and a little menu pops up with a button on it you can click to choose that ship as a target.  In a sandbox game, this always works.  However, if you're playing in a career game, it's only available if you've upgraded the tracking station.  (And I think Mission Control as well, I forget-- having both of them upgraded is needed for maneuver nodes, but I forget exactly what you have for "set target" to work.)

2 hours ago, prim said:

another question, can you make parachutes open automatically? would it make sense to put them on early stages of the rocket so the debris lands safely for recollection?

Depends what you mean by "automatically".  You can certainly put them on an early stage of the rocket, if you want-- for example, on a lower stage that you're staging away, and you set the parachutes in the same stage as the decoupler, so they activate when you ditch the stage.

However, if your idea is to use them for collecting the debris, this likely won't work unless you've got some mods installed to allow that.  Reason:  During the boost phase of your launch, you're going to be moving so fast that your ship will get far, far away from the ejected parachuting stage before the stage reaches the ground.  And because of the way KSP is designed, as soon as you get more than 20 km away from an airborne craft (including ejected debris with parachute), the game will automatically "garbage collect" the part, and it will vanish, thus defeating the purpose.

You can solve this with a mod-- there are mods that are specifically designed for that scenario.  I believe "Stage Recovery" is a pretty well known one.

It's worth pointing out, though, that the amount of cash you actually get from recovering is pretty small, so you may want to consider how important this is to you.  Some folks like recovering the stages and go out of their way to set things up to allow that to happen.  On the other hand, lots of folks (I expect the large majority of KSP players, including myself) simply don't bother, and let those stages just vanish.  You can use the time saved to do extra contracts that will make you a lot more money.   It's entirely up to you, based on your preferred play style.  There's no "right answer".

2 hours ago, prim said:

also, i saw people use some tool to calculate trajectories to the mun and other planets ... is this in-game or add on because i haven't seen anything of the sort ..

Do you mean this?

It's called a maneuver node.  It's part of the stock game, not an add-on.  However, if you're in a career game (rather than sandbox), they only become available after you've upgraded both the tracking station and Mission Control.

Once you've upgraded those buildings, maneuver nodes are easy to make:  go to map view, click on your ship's trajectory where you want to do the maneuver, and there's a button "place maneuver node"; then you drag those six little handles to adjust the trajectory as you like.

2 hours ago, prim said:

- are liquid engines even good/mean for lower atmosphere or are solid fuel engines better for first stages ?

They're both good.  Liquid engines generally are more fuel-efficient (higher Isp), and have the advantage of being able to control them via the throttle.  Solid fuel engines have the advantage of being dirt cheap, plus they also combine engine + "fuel tank" in a single part, which helps to reduce your ship's part count (which can be really important in the early game, when you haven't upgraded the VAB yet and are limited to 30 parts).

I tend to use SRBs myself for launching off the pad, but that's just 'coz I like them.    You can pick the way you like best.

Do be aware that not all liquid engines are suitable for launching off the pad.  Some of them (like the Terrier and Poodle, to take a couple of examples) are "vacuum engines" that are hideously fuel-inefficient and give anemic thrust if you try to use them at sea-level pressure-- they're intended for use in space.  So if you're using a liquid fuel engine to launch off the pad, check its Isp in the VAB (you can see it on the parts tab), in particular what the ASL ("atmosphere sea level") value is.  If it has a really really low atmospheric Isp, don't use it off the pad-- only use it for your upper stages that kick in when you're above 10km altitude.

2 hours ago, prim said:

- i am avoiding aeroplanes for now, since it's a whole new field, i can achieve, say going to and land on mun and go back, and later play with aeroplanes or are they necessary for early success?

Not necessary.  It's a play-style thing:  some people like airplanes, some don't.  You can ignore the airplane part of the tech tree if you'd like to save them for later.

Even if you're not really into planes, they can be handy in early career for gathering some science and completing some contracts, but you can also get along without them if you like.

Also, note that some airplane parts can be useful for rockets-- e.g. control surfaces to help stabilize rockets, etc.

2 hours ago, prim said:

- the crane .. when you have a rocket on the launchpad... can you make the crane ... longer? sometimes lower stages of the rocket are too wide and crane gets in between and messes with launch ...

By "crane," I assume you mean the launch clamps.  The answer is no, you can't.  (Though there are mods that add new, bigger ones for large rockets-- check out SpaceY).

However, note that you don't actually have to use them (I practically never use them myself)-- you can design your rocket so that it just sits on the pad on its own.

Also, if the problem is that your wide rocket has the outer parts getting in the way... why not just attach them to those outer parts?  Problem solved. 

2 hours ago, prim said:

- is there a button for show/hide all instruments? sometimes when u have a few termometers and barometers it's annonying clicking them all and rotating the rocket to even reach them sometimes .... one button would solve this little problem, does it exist?

Nope.  (By "instruments," I assume you mean science instruments, and not the in-flight instruments like the navball and such.  You can toggle the latter on/off via F2-- folks usually do that when they want to get them out of the way for taking screenshots.)

One thing you might find useful, though:  you can "pin" the right-click menu for parts.  That is, you know that little menu that pops up for a part when you right-click on it?  Normally that goes away as soon as you click something else.  But if you click the little "lock" button on the menu's top-right corner, it will stay displayed even when you view something else.  So if you wanted to, you could pin the menus of your instruments and move their menus over to the side where they're not in the way, and then they'll be right there for you when you need them.

One limitation of that, though, is that it doesn't persist in the save file.  If you switch to another ship and then come back, you'd have to re-pin them.

2 hours ago, prim said:

also about auto moderation? i know it prevents spam, and i don't mind but i assume at some point you can get a "not a spammer" status with auto approved comments?

Yeah, sorry about that, it's one of those unfortunate necessities of life imposed upon us by spammers.  Ugh. 

The good news is that it will automatically go away as soon as you've made five posts, so, pretty soon I expect. 

 

[prim]

Thank you very much @Snark Great info. As you mentioned upgrading some of the buildings will solve most of my problems, I haven't done that yet, only launchpad and vehicle assembly building ... next on my list, tracking station.

[Spricigo]

5 hours ago, prim said:

... i  lot of math and physics involved here...   ... do i really need to know all this and be able to calculate?

A basic understanding of the concept is certanly usefull, but actual number are much less important IMHO.

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- are liquid engines even good/mean for lower atmosphere or are solid fuel engines better for first stages ?

Rocket optimization is a long ongoing discussion around there. The closest thing to a conclusion people reached is "depends" .

SRB are cheap, pack a considerable punch, have a considerable dry weight and low Isp. It mostly relegate then for when a kick out off the launchpad is nedeed(/is usefull). That kick may be just to the first hundreds of meters or enough to put the rocket in the space depending on the design.

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aeroplanes, are they necessary for early success?

Some tasks are easy  done with planes. But nothing you can't do, or choose to not do, without planes.

 

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can you make the crane ... longer?

maybe a mod feature, but I use offset tool to put it out of the way when necessary. Is a good solution... If you don't mind that the pieces physical holding your rocket are visualy 5m away.

2 hours ago, prim said:

upgrading  buildings

You may like to know about KSC microbiomes. Those are ground only biomes in the KSC gorund, they are tied with particular buildings in the complex (e.g. VAB Round Tank; VAB tanks) , meaning that as you upgrade the facilities you will unlock new ones.