Next Small Step: RP-1 Career Series

[Wiseman]

Am I back? I guess I am! Let's get started with a brand new series, this time with a more historical theme. We'll be digging into KSP 1.7.3 and RSS/RO/RP-1 for a career mode game set on actual Earth! I'll be talking us through the gameplay of RP-1 and how my designs were inspired by frantically combing through wikipedia to understand why my missions keep failing.

 

[Wiseman]

In which I have trouble reading a fuel gauge! We're back to the RP-1 career mode, blazing a path through the early game with good sounding rockets and stolen planes.

 

 

[Wiseman]

Another voyage of the SciPlane! But lets not do that again, shall we? It's a silly craft. Then, we move into further sounding rocket testing: a blend of real-world and Kerbal craft, the WAC Corporal with another one sort of stuck on the end to get a little further.

 

 

[Wiseman]

Are you ready to spend a bunch of this episode in the VAB?! No, I'm really asking. Let me know in the comments if this much detail during the design phase is helpful or not. As we transition out of the easy to build Aerobees and start thinking about spin-stabilizing R-2s, the challenge begins to ramp up!

 

 

[Wiseman]

In which we iterate on sounding rocket design! This phase can last a really long time in an RP-1 playthrough, but I'm doing what I can to show a quick, if not quite optimal, path through it. We want to get to orbital rocketry and do all the fun stuff from there, but we have to learn how to launch downrange first!

 

 

[nepphhh]

On 3/6/2020 at 2:32 PM, Wiseman said:

In which I have trouble reading a fuel gauge! We're back to the RP-1 career mode, blazing a path through the early game with good sounding rockets and stolen planes.

 

 

Hey! That's my plane

[Wiseman]

15 hours ago, nepphhh said:

Hey! That's my plane

Don't look now, but I stole another one! 

 

[TeddyAglet]

Quick question - where do you get your procedural parts? For what I could see, the max KSP version for those was 1.3.1 in CKAN. Or I may have followed RP-1 install instructions wrong.

Simply put, did you just use the install instructions exactly as they ask or something else?

[Wiseman]

On 3/21/2020 at 5:49 AM, TeddyAglet said:

Quick question - where do you get your procedural parts? For what I could see, the max KSP version for those was 1.3.1 in CKAN. Or I may have followed RP-1 install instructions wrong.

Simply put, did you just use the install instructions exactly as they ask or something else?

Use the install instructions exactly. In this case, they direct you to download the release version of Procedural Parts for 1.7.3. The only time you'll use CKAN is if there's no link or additional instructions. For example, the one after Procedural Parts in the Recommended Extra Mods list is B9 Aerospace Procedural Wings (Fork), for which there is no link or instructions. That means you should grab it off CKAN. 

[Wiseman]

The sounding rocket phase of an RP-1 playthrough can take quite a while, but we're getting close to the end of the beginning now. We're balancing work on the manned spaceflight program using early spaceplanes with developing new technologies for better rockets. Things mostly go well!

 

 

[Wiseman]

A bit of a hectic episode, with lots of short missions to wrap up contracts we've been working on. Also, a new spaceplane is unveiled!

 

 

[Wiseman]

I've really got to give up this whole plane business, it's even harder than I thought! In this episode, we unlock pivotal new technology that drives a wave of new crafts. I talk a bit about the historical Bumper-WAC rocket, and then pretend my shiny new airplane is a bumper car.

 

[Wiseman]

One of my most easy-breezy successful plane missions is followed up by (spoiler alert) a failure entirely of my own making. Meanwhile, we decide to adhere to the Latin motto "Per Aspera ad Astra", which means "through hardship to the stars", as we embark on our momentous drive towards orbit!

 

 

[Wiseman]

In which I prepare for orbit by adding ROKerbalism to my install! (Disclaimer: the RP-1 devs discourage adding it to a live playthrough. Back up your installs, people.) I wrap up our current back of X-Plane contracts, and then begin testing a sub-optimal booster configuration for our first orbit! (I also just realized I composed a thumbnail nearly identical to this one for episode 9. Whoops! I like that shot, okay??)

 

 

[Wiseman]

Spoiler alert in that episode name, sheesh. It took us 12 entire episodes, which seems like a lot, but in terms of game-time we made it before Sputnik or Explorer 1! In this episode, we loft our first artificial satellite, do a bunch of science, and prepare for a bold new future of space exploration.

 

 

[Wiseman]

Another momentous (and possibly game-breaking) step into the future: we've migrated to KSP 1.8.1, with the accompanying updates to RSS/RO/RP-1! I spend some time talking through the biggest changes for this version, dreaming about 1956-1957 orbital rocketry tech, and fighting with airplane textures.

 

 

[Wiseman]

In this episode, we unlock a few more nodes of satellite-era technology, opening the game up in a big way! I talk through procedural avionics, the pros and cons of the new types of tanks available, and a bunch of other design considerations.

 

 

[Wiseman]

Let's talk design! In this episode, I fly the last Redstone-Aerobee, then spend a ton of time chatting about design choices for our next big rocket. New technology and new parts mean a lot of careful choices and hours of tinkering with my take on the Thor-Able! Also, my sound completely craps out again. A fix for that is on the way...

 

 

[Wiseman]

Let's get another flight of the Thor-Able under our belts! There's a lot of science to get and things to unlock, but we're running low on funds. What we need is a big plan to get a ton of both of those things - let's get nuts!

 

 

[Wiseman]

Iterate, design, test! As my microphone continues to degrade waiting for the new one to arrive, we have a lot of tweaking upgrading to do with our Thor-Able analogue, the Celes. Will new avionics, fixed staging, and a dramatically reduced payload mass actually get us to the moon??

 

 

[Wiseman]

We continue to follow the American space race trajectory, right down to a series of failures (both mechanical and in my own planning) that necessitate a re-launch of the mission to impact the moon. What lurks in the darkness of the Moon's surface?! It's regolith, and we're going to investigate it at tremendous velocity!

 

 

[Wiseman]

We're just throwing Celes rockets up left and right this episode, with a remarkable success rate compared to real life Thor-Able. (Also, do you folks want me to keep calling rockets by historical names? Or switch to full-on made up names??) Most of my failures are caused by bad planning, but I'm getting better! We're learning a ton as we continue to explore lunar regolith from extremely short range! Also, the first flight of Johnny Flores, a pilot with the most pilot name ever!

 

 

[Wiseman]

In this episode, I immediately eat my own words when I say my AJ10-Early engine is reliable. Spoilers, I guess? But the pace of launches has picked up really dramatically! It's also finally time to see what our new pilot Johnny Flores is up to!

 

 

[Wiseman]

In mythology, Icarus glued some wings to himself and flew too close to the sun. The wax holding them there melted, and he plummeted into the ocean. I'm not saying that's about to happen to our intrepid test pilot Johnny Flores, but... There are some parallels in this episode! As a bonus, we put up our first sun-synchronous satellite!

 

 

[Wiseman]

The title gives it away a little, but in this episode we put our very first satellite into orbit around the Moon! I plan a highly science-rich orbit, and we get to use the awesome power of digital communications to send that science home. We unlocked 1959 Orbital Rocketry, which gives us some desperately needed reliability upgrades (for all that winds up being worth), and then it's on to a sub-orbital X-15 flight... During which I channel the old KSP community manager and pull a 360 no-scope. I think I might need to redesign this plane again.