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How to NOT strand your tourists in orbit, and other noobish funtimes

Vagrant203

By Vagrant203
in KSP1 Mission Reports

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Vagrant203

Vagrant203

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Posted (edited)

Hey all. 

 

I'm a relatively new player, just got KSP on the first of this year. Been lurking but haven't joined till now cause I didn't think I'd have anything to say.

But then, a situation developed.

I had a contract to take some tourists up to space. Well, a couple, enough to warrant slapping two Hitchhiker cans on top of a big ol rocket. Simple enough.

I also have a sort of wandering station concept in the works. Just a Mk1-3 pod, a mk2 can and a science lab with two side mounted 2.5m tanks and Skipper engines. (And some other necessary bits and bobs I had to shove into a service bay and send up after.) But those tanks are near dry, which makes it hard to wander anywhere beyond a slightly different orbit.

Ooh, I know, let's over engineer this tourbus and transfer the rest of the fuel!

That worked great. And then I realized a problem. No fuel, no deorbit.

Well, I had to think for a minute or two, but then it hit me.

The docking port is on the bottom of the stack, so that the lead module is pulling everything else as it's added. So I whipped around to apoapsis, briefly dropped the periapsis of the whole shebang to 35km, then undocked the bus and scooted a bit away with RCS before whipping back around to burn my periapsis back up to a hundred km.

Switched over to the tourbus, spun and decoupled my final engine stage, and from there it was a standard reentry.

So that's what I consider my first interesting KSP story. Some panicked improvisation and slightly unconventional methods. Not much, but I'm just getting started.

Edited by Vagrant203
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Vagrant203

Vagrant203

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5 hours ago, Pretorian28715 said:

@Vagrant203 that sounds like a standard KSP launch and mission to me....

Let's see what else happens.

Awaiting MOAR...

Well, that savefile also died an inexplicable death. Got an error saying something about value can't be null. And I hadn't changed mods.

Eh, whatever. Got a new one going, with mods including Snacks and MechJeb (since my computer is crappy enough to lag for most of my play time, I like having a helmsman rather than trying to manually compensate.)

The station concept will definitely make a comeback, and I'll post anything else I think is interesting when it happens.

Oh, I just managed to upgrade the SPH to two, so I'm moments from launching a plane with wingtip mounted science packages to be dropped on the mountains to the north and... Somewhere else, I dunno. So, I'll probably edit this post again unless someone else posts first.

Or bloody not. Keeps yawing on me. Almost every plane does this until I tweak something and it magically works suddenly.

[three hours later]

Well.

I finally relearned how to make a plane that actually functions, what with [REDACTED] gears having to be JUST RIGHT.

Finally manage to fly to AND OVER the mountains. Drop one probe. Everything goes sideways, literally. I manage to not crash, fly a bit more, then lag hits as I try to drop the second [REDACTED] thing. 

Pop the emergency chutes. Slide to a stable stop. Recover. Go to tracking center.

NEITHER OF THE LITTLE [REDACTED] ARE SHOWING UP. WHISKEY. TANGO. FOXTROT. OVER.

Edited by Vagrant203
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fulgur

fulgur

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You've got to have the right craft turned on at the top of the tracking station. Press the buttons with ship-symbols on until they appear. (Or, you know, fly the mission again if it doesn't work...)

Also, take pictures with [F1] and they'll appear in the Screenshots folder of KSP (you know where it is, because you have mods). Upload to a file sharing site like Imgur and copy the image location (ends in .jpg, .png etc) to display on the forums.

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Vagrant203

Vagrant203

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3 hours ago, fulgur said:

You've got to have the right craft turned on at the top of the tracking station. Press the buttons with ship-symbols on until they appear. (Or, you know, fly the mission again if it doesn't work...)

Also, take pictures with [F1] and they'll appear in the Screenshots folder of KSP (you know where it is, because you have mods). Upload to a file sharing site like Imgur and copy the image location (ends in .jpg, .png etc) to display on the forums.

Yesss. I am... Aware of those facts. The only icons off were debris and flags. The payloads were equipped with probe cores to avoid debris status.

A second attempt today. Redesigned around a single payload. Switched to it to ensure the parachute deployed, then back to the plane. Checked on map screen while still flying and... It wasn't there.

I even put an antenna on this time, despite planning to simply recover it. Does it need an engine too? What the FOXTROT am I missing?

Screw it, I'll just make a crappy little RC plane.

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Cavscout74

Cavscout74

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23 minutes ago, Vagrant203 said:

What the FOXTROT am I missing?

If you got more than 2.5km away before it landed, it was probably deleted.  Past about 2.5km is out of physics range so the game stops tracking it in detail.  In "on rails" mode (out of physics range), the game just sees the trajectory going below a certain altitude & deletes it.

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Vagrant203

Vagrant203

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50 minutes ago, Cavscout74 said:

If you got more than 2.5km away before it landed, it was probably deleted.  Past about 2.5km is out of physics range so the game stops tracking it in detail.  In "on rails" mode (out of physics range), the game just sees the trajectory going below a certain altitude & deletes it.

Aaah. Yuh, that was the problem.

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Cavscout74

Cavscout74

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Just now, Vagrant203 said:

Aaah. Yuh, that was the problem.

There are mods that get around this or you could just circle close by till it lands.   I haven't specifically dropped probes from aircraft but I've bailed out my share of pilots from damaged or out of control planes and had some or all of the plane survive while the pilot was close by.

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Vagrant203

Vagrant203

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12 minutes ago, Cavscout74 said:

There are mods that get around this or you could just circle close by till it lands.   I haven't specifically dropped probes from aircraft but I've bailed out my share of pilots from damaged or out of control planes and had some or all of the plane survive while the pilot was close by.

That may be difficult but probably doable. Thanks for the tip. 

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Vagrant203

Vagrant203

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Hello again.

It's been an eventful few days for myself and the KSC.

8WEDObx.png

The payload was confirmed down by direct observation of Jeb. Hmm, telemetry seems to report negative 14 AGL; strange.

x25uwXA.png

After the extensive series of fruitless tests, Jeb made an executive decision and diverted to the Island Airfield for some R&R.

O4o8xIj.png

The poor kerb is so done he doesn't even blink at something detonating behind him; not his problem.

HMv5JeB.png

Relaxing at an old hangout he and his sister Val used to spend days at.

nl63a8b.png

Used Map View to target the probe. It's still there.

At least it was until Flight Tracking focused on the payload again. The telemetry reported two meters above ground, then negative 14, followed instantly by loss of signal and detonation.

The other three crew threw together an odd contraption. Engineering refers to it as a Valentina Special. Science would only say it proved useful.

Val calls it The Mutiny. To my face. I probably deserve that level of spiteful sass though, so I just watch as the three of them fly a box of snacks and recreational supplies out to the newly established Island Republic. I'm told the national anthem is just a chorus demanding I eat their shorts.

eYbiDsc.png

The four discuss the events surrounding the mountain. The pilot siblings now declare the mountain is cursed. Engineering doesn't agree or disagree, only confirms the events. 

Science convinces Val to include some scientific equipment on The Mutiny. Some data was gathered en route to the Republic. Afterwards, Science convinced Val that another attempt should be made in her craft.

No photos exist of the following independent mission. Neither Val nor Science have uttered a word about what happened up there. Some time later, The Mutiny was recovered, missing all four of the pseudo tilt props, but containing uninjured kerbs and the scientific data available atop the mountains. 

No further expeditions will be mounted to the newly christened Accursed Mounds. In a strange reversal, Science no longer vehemently denies the existence of a curse. They won't specifically confirm anything either, but a solemn nod of apparent agreement has been observed at every reference to the new name.

I mean, if Science ain't arguing the curse angle, the evidence must have been pretty strong though.

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Vagrant203

Vagrant203

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1 hour ago, fulgur said:

Ooh, a Kraken!
Also nice pictures. In my relentless quest to provide advice, ever thought about getting cloud packs? SciFiVE is pretty light.

I'll take another look at it, but my computer crawls already. Maybe it won't make a significant difference.

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Vagrant203

Vagrant203

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RE: SciFiVE

It's installed and not hurting performance. At least noticeably.

As for operations, things continue to be... Interesting.

After a test flight ended in a bad wreck (one I couldn't revert because the Escape menu wouldn't come up) Val and Bill have been, ah, briefly indisposed. Perhaps even more frustrating, I think they'll have lost their one star after their return.

In the meantime, I sent Bob up in an orbiter with a probe cores attached. The core being a Stayputnik was countered by my use of MechJeb. Science was gathered and he got his star, but I accidentally staged the final engine away BEFORE the deorbit.

I sent another probe up. Tossed a few tourists up with it. Managed to nudge the orbiter out of orbit with RCS. Switched to him to deploy chutes, then back to the tourists to bring them down. If something goes wrong, Bob can come back. Tourists don't. Lo and behold, despite pre-arming the chutes, Bob is now MIA.

This bloody stupid [multiple expletives redacted] HOW HARD IS IT TO CHECK FOR ACTIVE CHUTES AND CALCULATE SURVIVAL?! Krakens sake!

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Vagrant203

Vagrant203

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Update

Valentina and Bob have returned, minus all XP. However, Bill is, in fact, reported as Killed in Action. Please pay your respects in whatever way you see fit.

On a brighter note, the contract and World First bonus for a rendezvous in Kerbin's orbit, along with tourist fare, have given me enough funds to upgrade the Astronaut Complex without bankrupting myself. This means I'll be picking up strays and any further missions will be able to spacewalk all dropping crew to a single vessel.

Edited by Vagrant203
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Vagrant203

Vagrant203

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I got KSP on Steam. My latest playthrough made use of a collection of ships that went with a guide, intended to blitz the starting tech. It's worked pretty well. 

For those of you who also use Steam, the guide and ship collection are called the Tin Can Program.

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KerballingSmasher

KerballingSmasher

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14 hours ago, Vagrant203 said:

I got KSP on Steam. My latest playthrough made use of a collection of ships that went with a guide, intended to blitz the starting tech. It's worked pretty well. 

For those of you who also use Steam, the guide and ship collection are called the Tin Can Program.

Tin Can Program? Okay, going to look it up later today. Thanks for the info!

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