I forgot how blasted difficult this game was/is!

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

I just managed to bring Valintina back from my first mun flyby (of my second career, after years off).  What used to feel routine - getting to the Mun… kicked my butt.

But that wasn't the hard part.

The hard part was not blowing up the reentry vehicle b/c my early career attempt had me leaving the Mun with a sip of gas and too steep of a descent angle.  (Note: you can't just drop straight in from the Mun with a 30k Kerbin perapsis and survive... I forgot to save at the Mun… and so I had a lot of creative maneuvering to do to get enough altitude for a ballistic air-break and reentry.  Very seat of the pants.  Very stressful. Very 4 tries to lose half the science - but still survive.)

Anyway - I hope KSP2 keeps this.  The insanely difficult... is actually part of the fun!

[Superfluous J]

Glad to read someone coming back and having fun

Note: You probably didn't need to lose that science. You can go EVA and right click a science thing and "take" the science from it. Then when you get back in the pod, the science will go there. If Valentina survives, the science will survive. Also, for your basic science gear (not the Goo or Jr) you can use it again after removing the data!

[Chequers]

Congratulations! And welcome back to KSP. As a fairly new player myself, it's great to see these early career posts - I'm always blown away with how routine some players hugely complex missions are to far flung celestial bodies - and here we are, still tiptoeing around Kerbin's SOI.

But I totally agree - I was trying to pin what makes KSP so infinitely playable... and I think it's that - it's not just difficult in terms of learning curve... it can be as difficult or simple as you want it to be, because you make your own objectives. There's no 'completing' space... there's always another way of doing things, a new project to try, or new ways to test yourself. 

I just managed to land on another planet for the first time, and I did it with a landing pod that housed a mini rover. Was that the easiest way to land on Duna? Probably not. But was working through the different challenges and seeing the mission come together and work after all the planning and hard work fun? It sure was!

[Klapaucius]

8 minutes ago, Chequers said:

it can be as difficult or simple as you want it to be, because you make your own objectives. There's no 'completing' space... there's always another way of doing things, a new project to try, or new ways to test yourself. 

I spent a lot of time building bizarre aircraft because I wanted to see what I could make fly, and then see if I could make it fly well: asymmetrical, ones that can takeoff in either direction, one with propeller blades for lifting surfaces, one that is controlled solely by bending the entire aircraft.  Practical? No. Fun? Absolutely!

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

4 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

Glad to read someone coming back and having fun

Note: You probably didn't need to lose that science. You can go EVA and right click a science thing and "take" the science from it. Then when you get back in the pod, the science will go there. If Valentina survives, the science will survive. Also, for your basic science gear (not the Goo or Jr) you can use it again after removing the data!

Oh don't I know it!  

Familiarity breeds contempt, right?  Whelp... Laxity kills. 

I 'knew I had this' despite struggling to get the maneuver node to line up as I liked.  I knew it was an easy reentry - heck, I've come back to Kerbin with only RCS... I've got this.  No need to EVA for the science.  No need to save while still in the Muns SOI...

 

                Nope 

 

I warped to just before reentry... And noticed that I was waaaay too fast. 

Sigh. 

 

Lessons are painful 

 

(game is fun!) 

[Vezbot]

7 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I just managed to bring Valintina back from my first mun flyby (of my second career, after years off).  What used to feel routine - getting to the Mun… kicked my butt.

But that wasn't the hard part.

The hard part was not blowing up the reentry vehicle b/c my early career attempt had me leaving the Mun with a sip of gas and too steep of a descent angle.  (Note: you can't just drop straight in from the Mun with a 30k Kerbin perapsis and survive... I forgot to save at the Mun… and so I had a lot of creative maneuvering to do to get enough altitude for a ballistic air-break and reentry.  Very seat of the pants.  Very stressful. Very 4 tries to lose half the science - but still survive.)

Anyway - I hope KSP2 keeps this.  The insanely difficult... is actually part of the fun!

Yeah, the game can be difficult at times. Even 2 years later after I started I find myself making mistakes like launching unstable sections of a space station not secured to the rocket so during the ascent the whole thing is wobbling back and forth at angles of 10 degrees from straight up. After several orbits I'm doing a rendevous correction burn to set up a rendevous of 34 km, Then I realize the command pods in the utility group in the vab actually have no controls at all so when I detach the utility section of Station Cygnus, I cant do anything at all, no rcs, nothing which means I can't dock with it with the rest of the space station. Set me back 2 hours and I ended up de-orbiting the 30 meter long space station section with Jeb and 4 others before finally crashing the pod with the 4 kerbals face down because my parachutes only reduce the speed to 20 m/s and kill everybody but Jeb.

[wumpus]

Just started one after a long time off (have to install RSS/RO at some point).  Stability was kicking me.   Stage 1 was perfectly stable.  Stage 2 ... wasn't.  Probably have to remove the multilab and have Jeb (instead of Bob resetting all the experiments) fly the rocket...

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Well - I did it again; but this time with Jeb as the pilot.

Jeb remembered an old trick, though.  Coming in hot once again, straight from my first full orbit of the Mun (placed a satellite with relay antenna, too), Jeb only had enough fuel left to get himself into HKO.  But he did not want to be stuck in space. 

So with a 45,000 perapsis, he used the good old Reliant and its over-sized fuel can (X200-16 attached to a one-man lander = much greater surface for aerobraking) - he went full retrograde burn and just used the engine and spent fuel can as an ablation shield.

Worked, too - but it was tense.

 

[Fraktal]

4 hours ago, Vezbot said:

Even 2 years later after I started I find myself making mistakes like launching unstable sections of a space station not secured to the rocket so during the ascent the whole thing is wobbling back and forth at angles of 10 degrees from straight up.

And that's why you launch aerodynamically unwieldy and too-large-to-fit-inside-fairing payloads in a pull configuration, rather than a push configuration.

Unrealistic? Definitely. Ugly? Maybe. But if the payload's drag auto-stabilizes the rocket, who am I to complain? 

Quote

After several orbits I'm doing a rendevous correction burn to set up a rendevous of 34 km, Then I realize the command pods in the utility group in the vab actually have no controls at all so when I detach the utility section of Station Cygnus, I cant do anything at all, no rcs, nothing which means I can't dock with it with the rest of the space station.

And that's why I don't equip my tugs with RCS at all. I just tow them next to the station, zero out relative speed, and let the RCS-only worker pod permanently stationed at the space station come over and move the payload to where it needs to be. At least it gives my engineers something to do other than twiddling their thumbs.

 

That's what makes KSP great. There are multiple approaches to pretty much everything and nothing forces you to play how the game expects you to.

[Vezbot]

16 minutes ago, Fraktal said:

And that's why you launch aerodynamically unwieldy and too-large-to-fit-inside-fairing payloads in a pull configuration, rather than a push configuration.

Unrealistic? Definitely. Ugly? Maybe. But if the payload's drag auto-stabilizes the rocket, who am I to complain? 

And that's why I don't equip my tugs with RCS at all. I just tow them next to the station, zero out relative speed, and let the RCS-only worker pod permanently stationed at the space station come over and move the payload to where it needs to be. At least it gives my engineers something to do other than twiddling their thumbs.

 

That's what makes KSP great. There are multiple approaches to pretty much everything and nothing forces you to play how the game expects you to.

Well, thanks for the advice, I will be sure to utilize those techniques next time. I may have to split the utility section of Cygnus Station into 2-3 pieces because I believe the problem revolves mainly around the fact the payload nearly the same size as the rocket itself. My saurus VI ship height is 50 meters by itself and the utility section of the space station is 30 meters tall. The first two pieces were only 10 meters in height and the rendevous was perfect, and I was going to make the utility section the final section before I add the habitation modules on the sides. 

After all that I just raised the space station orbit to 350km and I will probably design a new rocket that is scaled up from my previous one, so the rocket size will be significantly bigger than the payload itself this time, but I think a fairing will cover the the station piece, it isn't too big.

Also the rcs flyer that detaches from the station and brings the next piece in to dock sounds pretty cool. I might design something like that and attach it to the station as well.

[Fraktal]

32 minutes ago, Vezbot said:

Well, thanks for the advice, I will be sure to utilize those techniques next time. I may have to split the utility section of Cygnus Station into 2-3 pieces because I believe the problem revolves mainly around the fact the payload nearly the same size as the rocket itself. My saurus VI ship height is 50 meters by itself and the utility section of the space station is 30 meters tall. The first two pieces were only 10 meters in height and the rendevous was perfect, and I was going to make the utility section the final section before I add the habitation modules on the sides. 

After all that I just raised the space station orbit to 350km and I will probably design a new rocket that is scaled up from my previous one, so the rocket size will be significantly bigger than the payload itself this time, but I think a fairing will cover the the station piece, it isn't too big.

Also the rcs flyer that detaches from the station and brings the next piece in to dock sounds pretty cool. I might design something like that and attach it to the station as well.

I split my station into modules that do one single thing (crew module, lab module, fuel module, power module, antenna module, etc. with any necessary size adaptors where necessary) and bring those up either one by one, or 2-3 at a time, depending on how big the module is (crew, lab and fuel modules plus six-way station cores for more docking ports are obviously too big to lift more than one at a time, but I did pull off three at a time before). All of the modules have a docking port on both ends so that the worker pod can grab it by either end to slot it into place by the other end. This also means that once I don't need a module, I can send up an empty tug, have the worker pod unplug the module and slot it into the tug, which then proceeds to haul the module back down to the ground for recovery (provided it survives the landing, that is).

The worker pod has the following components:

• 1 single-seat command pod, although you can go fully unmanned if you'd like
• 1 docking port at the top node of the command pod
• 1 OKTO core for SAS (so that Engineers can handle it, freeing up the Pilots for other missions)
• 1 of the smallest battery, mostly for emergency
• 2 OX STAT solar panels on opposite sides of the worker pod to keep your reaction wheels going
• 2 lights pointed in the same direction as the docking port in case the module hauling lasts long enough for the station to be eclipsed and timewarping until the eclipse is over would mean drifting away from the station
• 2 roundified monoprop tanks, this plus the command pod's monoprop tank is generously enough fuel for fetching-hauling-docking multiple modules all over the station
  • And of course, don't forget monoprop storage on the station itself so that the worker pod can refuel at least a few times before you need more fuel from the ground.
• 1 extra reaction wheel to make it easier to turn while hauling the payload
• 2 single-thruster RCS blocks per dorsal, ventral, port, starboard, 4 for fore and aft, all set to translation only and balanced for zero torque while not carrying a payload (I use RCS Build Aid)
  • Don't waste RCS on rotation, use the reaction wheels for it. RCS rotate only if the payload is very heavy (like a topped off Rockomax/Kerbodyne fuel tank)
• You can add on structural parts for bling, if you like, I just keep it barebones myself to extend the fuel endurance via weight savings

The tug itself is unmanned and consists of a lower stage as regular finned booster, an upper stage as a probe core with batteries, plus fuel tanks and engines radially mounted on the end of outward-pointing girders (to provide enough clearance for the engine exhaust to not torch the payload), plus a downwards-facing fairing base as upper stage, with the payload sandwiched between the two stages. When the lower stage with its fins is expended, the upper stage pulls the payload behind it rather than pushing it, making it aerodynamically stable due to the payload's drag being at the rear and much less prone to flexing if you try to steer during flight. Once the payload has been delivered, the tug can use its remaining fuel to deorbit itself and parachute down for a soft landing, leaving no debris in orbit.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

19 hours ago, Fraktal said:

And that's why you launch aerodynamically unwieldy and too-large-to-fit-inside-fairing payloads in a pull configuration, rather than a push configuration.

Unrealistic? Definitely. Ugly? Maybe. But if the payload's drag auto-stabilizes the rocket, who am I to complain? 

And that's why I don't equip my tugs with RCS at all. I just tow them next to the station, zero out relative speed, and let the RCS-only worker pod permanently stationed at the space station come over and move the payload to where it needs to be. At least it gives my engineers something to do other than twiddling their thumbs.

 

That's what makes KSP great. There are multiple approaches to pretty much everything and nothing forces you to play how the game expects you to.

You nailed it there!  -- I sooo hope they keep this aspect in KSP2 (rather than falling prey to 'Finance wants more players; make the game easier with fewer confusing choices')!

Also; I would love to see what a "Pull Configuration" launch vehicle looks like!

 

---- and yet another random question while I'm at it:  Regarding 'Transmitting science'.  Is there 'x amount of science' at a given place, such that I can collect and bring back the whole amount in however many tries I need (read: multiple transmissions, if necessary) - or do I run the risk of losing science by not having a scientist gather it when he/she can?   (Ultimately, the question is, am I 'wasting' science by choosing to transmit at a lower amount)

[Fraktal]

You don't waste. One transmission at 100% signal strength sends back all the science you can send back in one transmission. If the signal strength is lower than that, you obviously transmit less, but the missing portion is not lost in the sense that you can never ever get it by fetching a second (or third, or fourth, etc.) copy later on. If you go into the R&D facility at the KSC and open the archive, the bars next to each experiment/biome/situation combination will tell you proportionally how much science from there you've sent back to Kerbin out of the total you can send back (which, in addition to the number next to the bar that says the exact value you've sent back so far, lets you gauge how much is left to collect). As long as the bar isn't 100% full, you can still get the remainder at any time (but the fuller it is, the less science you get per repeated experiment, so you eventually get to the point where it's simply not worth it to send another mission there).

[N_Danger]

7 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

You nailed it there!  -- I sooo hope they keep this aspect in KSP2 (rather than falling prey to 'Finance wants more players; make the game easier with fewer confusing choices')!

Also; I would love to see what a "Pull Configuration" launch vehicle looks like!

 

---- and yet another random question while I'm at it:  Regarding 'Transmitting science'.  Is there 'x amount of science' at a given place, such that I can collect and bring back the whole amount in however many tries I need (read: multiple transmissions, if necessary) - or do I run the risk of losing science by not having a scientist gather it when he/she can?   (Ultimately, the question is, am I 'wasting' science by choosing to transmit at a lower amount)

If it is a contract saying, for example,"transmit 67% of science from X with an complex scanning arm" you need to do the scan and transmit it.

You will find that the first scan for a complex scanning arm (looking at the pop up window) if transmitted, will yield 67% of the science. 

Another contract I've had is " collect 50% of seismic data". That one needs multiple collections and you keep checking the contact for progress.

 Note that if you just collect the science from the Complex scan arm in the above example and take it back to Kerbin for the 100% science gain. You will not be able to complete the contact for that item in that biome. 

As Fraktal said above check the R&D history and decide if you want all the science or do you take the contract.