The KSP Caveman Challenge 1.11.x - 1.12.x

[FloppyRocket]

3 hours ago, JAFO said:

Congratulations on getting it done! As for a do-over, that's your call. But feel free to submit what documentation you have from the first attempt, if you like. We'll let you know if it was sufficient.

Also, how did the Soyuz style re-entry capsules work out for you? I'm in the middle of a Hard run myself right now, and while I did glance at them, I opted to use the good ol' Mk1 Command Pod instead.

The Soyuz pod seems to work OK. It has 20 units of ablator.  It has a built-in decoupler, which detaches and leaves the lower round surface of the pod exposed. I would not trust it for a high-speed reentry, but from LKO it worked fine. Do not forget to attach an inline stabilizer and parachute (via first hand experience with both issues). I'm not sure if it's a better choice than the 1-seater default command pod.

Edited January 24, 2021 by FloppyRocket

[Popestar]

So after reading up, I decided to take NCD for a test drive.  You know, just to get used to some other concepts and such, right?  So I set everything. Took the Orbit Kerbin contract, did some sciency stuff on the launchpad, then did the 2 pod roller thing on the runway (which may or  may not be faster than what I do, but I cannot control it effectively, so it is not an option).

Anyhow, I always check contracts to see if there is anything I can do because ima do it anyhow, right?  Well, a contract is there to test the flea on the launchpad.  I'm like "well, I'm gonna launch anyhow" so I take it.  I go directly from mission control to the VAB...and the contract comes up as a failure.  What?  I haven't even started building the thing, and I haven't even gotten beyond 15 total minutes in the game.  And it failed?  So I lose 18k in funds, effectively bankrupting me.  And I have no other contracts available to get enough cash to build anything.

Anybody encounter this before?  Luckily I wasn't all that far in, so starting over won't irritate me much.  But to have a contract fail before I even get a chance to do it?

[Muetdhiver]

15 hours ago, FloppyRocket said:

The Soyuz pod seems to work OK. It has 20 units of ablator.  It has a built-in decoupler, which detaches and leaves the lower round surface of the pod exposed. I would not trust it for a high-speed reentry, but from LKO it worked fine. Do not forget to attach an inline stabilizer and parachute (via first hand experience with both issues). I'm not sure if it's a better choice than the 1-seater default command pod.

It works okay. on the plus side you save at least a part with the integrated decoupler, potentially 2 with the heat shield.

However, for me it has two big downsides : poor aerodynamics, and no reaction wheel.

I tend to use service bays as heat shields, works amazing, protects all the precious science and can act as a poor-man aerobrake by opening the doors.

[JAFO]

7 hours ago, Popestar said:

Well, a contract is there to test the flea on the launchpad.  I'm like "well, I'm gonna launch anyhow" so I take it.  I go directly from mission control to the VAB...and the contract comes up as a failure.  What?  I haven't even started building the thing, and I haven't even gotten beyond 15 total minutes in the game.  And it failed?  So I lose 18k in funds, effectively bankrupting me.  And I have no other contracts available to get enough cash to build anything.

Anybody encounter this before?  Luckily I wasn't all that far in, so starting over won't irritate me much.  But to have a contract fail before I even get a chance to do it?

Sorry to hear that, @Popestar.

I did a little digging, and it seems that (while apparently quite rare) you aren't the only one this has happened to. The best guess to date seems to be that it happens if a contract somehow manages to specify an old, deprecated version of a part, instead of the current version of that part. If you can provide me with a copy of the .sfs file for that particular game save (via dropbox, for example), I can dig around in it and try to confirm it for you.

If we can confirm this as the cause, then we can provide a better bug report to Squad.

Edited January 25, 2021 by JAFO

[Popestar]

35 minutes ago, JAFO said:

Sorry to hear that, @Popestar.

I did a little digging, and it seems that (while apparently quite rare) you aren't the only one this has happened to. The best guess to date seems to be that it happens if a contract somehow manages to specify an old, deprecated version of a part, instead of the current version of that part. If you can provide me with a copy of the .sfs file for that particular game save (via dropbox, for example), I can dig around in it and try to confirm it for you.

If we can confirm this as the cause, then we can provide a better bug report to Squad.

Unfortunately, I got rid of the sfs file when I started over.  Again, it was so close to the start that it wasn't that big of a deal.  I've already started over and I've unlocked my first node (Engineering).  I have 4 more flights that I know I have to do, which will net me another 2.4 science to put me at a whopping 3.4.  Then I'm going to try for a longer flight with a couple Fleas to get into space...or at least the upper atmosphere. 

[FloppyRocket]

6 hours ago, Muetdhiver said:

I tend to use service bays as heat shields, works amazing, protects all the precious science and can act as a poor-man aerobrake by opening the doors.

Interesting idea, I have not tried that.

[Popestar]

And I had to start the NCD challenge over AGAIN.  I lost both Val and Jeb on the same flight (2 flights, lost one on each) because for some reason the craft did not save the staging process either time I saved it in the VAB, so the MK16 continues to deploy immediately upon launch, and then goes away because of heat and g-forces.  So even though I saved the staging in the VAB, it failed to work both times.

This isn't a hard challenge (yet), but it's starting to get annoying that these issues I'm seeing in this particular custom difficulty have never come up for me before.  It's rather irritating that I get parts that auto-fail contracts, and that staging isn't being saved in the VAB.  I'm not that far in, but how many times do I have to start this over before the game actually works?

[Popestar]

So, instead of trying the NCD challenge again, I've decided to put that away for a while.  It's entirely possible that my issues are the result of a PEBCAK error (Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard), so before I continue with the hardest of the hard challenges, I am going to step back and go back to my Hard challenge career that's in progress.  In that game, today I took a few tourists into space, and then flew a plane over to the abandoned airfield island to pick up some science (thermometer, barometer, materials, goo, crew/eva report).  This plane is at maximum parts, but I've got enough liquid fuel in it that I could potentially fly this bad boy to most of the biomes on Kerbin.  I'm going to start by heading to the highlands and mountains to the west, then see if I can reach what looks to be desert on the western shore of the continent.  I don't know if I've got enough to get to the actual desert to the west, or if I've got enough to reach it flying east, but I can always try.  My big issue is that I cannot land a plane safely, so I rely on killing the engines and deploying parachutes when I'm close to my target landing area, and then throttling up enough to roll the plane to where I want it to be.  If I could land safely, that'd save me 2 parts, and I might be able to go with bigger fuel tanks.

I noticed today on the abandoned airfield that you cannot climb the ATC tower.  I thought I'd be able to, and I think that would be a pretty cool shot if you could get up there.  But, it is what it is!

Also, I've got a few of those contracts to do observational surveys on Kerbin at specific locations.  I've never taken one of those, primarily because I haven't spent all that much time flying planes.  Now that I'm on hard and need all the science I can get, I may take one.  I know that the coordinates and locations show up in the tracking station, but will they show up on the Map if I hit M in flight?  Do the planes have some kind of radar display at all in the stock game (no mods for this!) to show direction traveling to hit these places?  Or am I pretty much flying blind until the contract shows that I've hit the location?

[Popestar]

So instead of waiting for an answer, I just went for it and took the contract and flew around in my little plane.  As I suspected, there is no "radar" in stock KSP to help fly.  So I relied upon the map to figure out where I was headed the whole time.  Thankfully, when you get close to one of the areas, a little popup shows up that says "Entering Jerbo's Spirit" (or whatever location you are heading for with a contract).  That was at least a little helpful to know when to do the crew reports.  It wasn't much of a science gain, but any science on Hard is what I'll take!  Also by doing this, I was able to test how far this plane can go.  I've got 4 Mk0 Liquid Fuel Fuselage and 4 J-20 Juno Jet Engines on this thing.  I am quite confident that I could get this thing almost all the way to the desert in one flight, or maybe one of the poles.  I'm not so much worried about flying it out and about and then getting it home; Recover Vessel works just fine for me!

I have about 51 science points right now, and I'm trying to build up to 90 so I can unlock Advanced Construction.  I need fairings so I can put at least 1 probe on the Mun, 1 in orbit of the Mun, and 1 in orbit of Kerbin about halfway between Mun and Kerbin.  I've got a contract to send back science from the surface of the Mun, and while I could go through trying to do construction in space (which I might have to do at some point to finish the Hard challenge), I'm going to wait on that until absolutely necessary.  I've also got a contract to do some surveying near certain areas of the Mun, so I might see about doing that as well at the same time.  However, I have to get fairings first or no probes for me!

[paul_c]

So I started the "hard" (Topaz) a little while ago, and caught up a bit today. After a bunch of little test rockets into the sea testing some components for science, I tried to go orbital. I'd forgotten how much of a struggle it is initially with hardly anything and the 18t weight limit. But I think this should do it if flown properly:

Nearly there.....

And yes, made it including enough fuel to de-orbit and return safely. I have only one pilot left and I'm too stingy to hire another one, so I said Val can have the evening off. Except what with orbiting and stuff at 2400m/s, the "night" only lasts about 20 minutes long......

[paul_c]

I made this contraption to "harvest" science from around KSC:

With the 30 parts limit, it can do 3x biomes (science jr, temp, pressure, goo, transmit crew and EVA report) but only has one battery.....

This has to be world's most inefficient way to charge batteries....by running a jet-engine powered vehicle butting against a solid wall....

But it opened up a bit more tech and the little Terrier engine, by virtue of weight and better Isp, means more delta V in my final stage:

Hmmmmm ....... I have enough delta V for Mun (and Minmus) now! I will try to gather a good chunk of the remaining science from Kerbin though, I've already made a trip to the mountains. Still to do the poles and probably a few more.

[FloppyRocket]

On 1/23/2021 at 4:55 PM, FloppyRocket said:

Update: I completed all four tech tree layers, almost without realizing it. I got focused on trying to tweak the margins for doing a rendezvous-a-lander-in-LKO with a transfer stage (to get a boost for a Mun landing), that I didn't notice I already had enough science to buy all four layers minus about 1 unit, so I farmed some science from the Crawlerway and completed it.

But I don't feel like I did a very good job documenting things, so I might start over and do a clean run, now that I know the pitfalls.

One other interesting thing I observed along the way (but ultimately didn't use) - although fuel transfer isn't allowed, crossfeed still works. I found this out by accident when I had the lander and transfer stage docked, with one engine disabled, but the other was drawing fuel from both sets of tanks.

I did a re-run and completed the TALC challenge. Here is some documentation:

Summary:

I accepted no contracts. I farmed no science around KSC except for Launch Pad and Crawlerway.

Science on Kerbin came from several sub-orbital flights of increasing range. That covered Launch Pad, Shores, Grasslands, Mountains, Desert, probably a few others, and both Poles. Those sub-orbital flights included the Science Jr. once it was available. Scientist Bob covered all of the sub-orbital missions, so he could do the science dance after landing. But since Bob can't fly worth a drat, Jeb and Val alternated pilot duties for the orbital flights to low and high space. Then there were two Mun fly-by missions, to its low and high space. The orbital and Mun flights took two Goo, a barometer, and a temperature sensor attached to the top of the Onion pod, but left the Science Jr at home.

For the Mun launches, to get under the 18t launch limit I had to partially drain one of the fuel tanks. 

The second Mun fly-by to low space was only because I was a few units short of buying the last tech package.

And that's about it. 

Images:

Here are a few images with a pseudo-informative captions, more are available, these are just some highlights to show progress.

https://imgur.com/a/Neu3Dro

[Popestar]

Good stuff, @FloppyRocket!  Are you going to try for a harder difficulty?

[JAFO]

11 hours ago, paul_c said:

I made this contraption to "harvest" science from around KSC:

That is definitely one of the more unique Caveman Science Harvesters I've seen. Nice!

[JAFO]

54 minutes ago, FloppyRocket said:

I did a re-run and completed the TALC challenge. Here is some documentation:

<snip>

https://imgur.com/a/Neu3Dro

Congratulations, @FloppyRocket!

It is my great pleasure to welcome you to the Clan, and bestow upon you the badge for completing the Caveman Challenge on Talc level.

Unga-bunga!

Your name is being carved on the cave wall right now, and your badge will be in your inbox shortly.

Edited January 27, 2021 by JAFO

[Popestar]

An update on my Hard career!

I got enough science to get to 90 by flying a plane all over Kerbin.  Or, at least as far as I could get, anyhow.  Did a bunch of crew reports, SC-9001 gathering, temperature scans...you know, the basics of science harvesting.  Got to 90 points, and unlocked Advanced Construction.  As soon as I did that, I noticed a contract appeared to put a satellite in orbit at about halfway between Kerbin and the Mun, and as I was gonna do that anyhow, blamo!  Science points, funds, and reputation for doing something I was gonna do anyhow.  I put that puppy in orbit, and then sent a relay probe to the Mun.  Pe is about 18k...and the Ap is about 1 million.  Yeah, didn't have the most efficient gravity turn during launch, and when I went to do the transfer to the Mun I ended up misjudging where to burn...and my initial Pe was the center of the Mun.  So I had to correct for that, and then burn retrograde at the new Pe to get an orbit.  I got one, but it certainly ain't circular.  And with no fuel remaining to correct it...it is what it is.

I have a lander built, and I do not make any reservations about getting it home.  It's landing on the Mun, and it's staying there.  I still have that contract to transmit data back from the surface of the Mun, and I picked up one to transmit data back from space around the Mun.  A temperature and pressure scan will be done and sent back from orbit, and then I'll land (and hopefully survive!) so I can gather all the science and send it back from the surface.  Fingers crossed; landing manually is a tricky thing for me, and more often than not I end up crashing.  And on Hard you can't revert to a quicksave.  Eeep!

[paul_c]

The 18t limit is getting awkward when you want to carry more than just the basics, so I have been playing around with different designs. My first was a traditional 3 stage using 1.25m parts but I "sold out" on a strategy to convert money into science (I can always make money on the easier contracts) so I tried reusability. Now, in KSP if it goes out of a certain range and is debris, it will disappear, so recovery means staying within range, so it means single stage then letting it fall, then deploying chutes (and I chose to separate the parts for safety too). The different chute config means the command module always lands first, then I can easily switch to the other to supervise its landing too. 

It works suborbital but after a bit of tweaking, couldn't make it work for orbital trips unfortunately.

 

Flying to the Mun is hard when the info you're given is like this:

I have made 2 Mun trips, the first was far away about 500km Pe so I burnt all my fuel trying to lower it to get some gravity turn off of the Mun - it got flung into a wide orbit of Kerbin but I did transmit some Mun data. The next was a direct hit on the Mun, so I burned all my fuel avoiding the collision with it, and it got sent into a solar orbit (and is out of comms range to return any solar science!) but it did beam back some near-Mun science.

I have no idea how I'm going to earn the rest of the science, I guess I'll fire some more probes at the Mun and see if I can suss out a reliable way to do it. Then I can think of actually returning something. No idea how I'm going to get the extra fuel for a landing etc. I need to send just probe+fuel+engine and not much more I guess...

[Popestar]

1 hour ago, paul_c said:

fire some more probes at the Mun and see if I can suss out a reliable way to do it

I have found that your Kerbin Ap, when aiming for the Mun, should be about 45 degrees ahead of wherever the Mun is currently sitting.  Basically, I zoom out until I can just see the Mun's orbit line, then I pan until I've got the Mun just on the right side of my screen.  Then when the craft if at the closest point to the bottom of my screen, I burn until I get an Ap of ~11 million km.

It isn't perfect, but more often than not I can get a Munar Pe in the 300km range doing this.  Obviously, the further away to Kerbin Pe you burn, the more off your Munar Pe will be.

Edited January 27, 2021 by Popestar

[paul_c]

6 minutes ago, Popestar said:

I have found that your Kerbin Ap, when aiming for the Mun, should be about 45 degrees ahead of wherever the Mun is currently sitting.  Basically, I zoom out until I can just see the Mun's orbit line, then I pan until I've got the Mun just on the right side of my screen.  Then when the craft if at the closest point to the bottom of my screen, I burn until I get an Ap of ~11 million km.

It isn't perfect, but more often than not I can get a Munar Pe in the 300km range doing this.  Obviously, the further away to Kerbin Pe you burn, the more off your Munar Pe will be.

I twigged it - previously I had burnt until my Kerbin Ap touched the orbit of the Mun's line. This time I burnt until just before it, and got a nice intercept. Also my re-working all the staging etc worked out, because I built something with about 7100m/s dV too - albeit the payload is nothing more than a controller/reaction wheel/instruments. I will timewarp until a full Mun and try a landing. I already have near and far science so nothing to lose really.

[paul_c]

Yay I made it! The guessed-at burn produced a Mun Pe of 18km, so it was easy to get the orbit. And with enough fuel, go for a landing:

I nailed the landing, even though there's no landing gear and a slope:

However it ran out of battery transmitting the science, SAS turned off and it fell over! I will know next time to let the battery charge to full for each transmission. And I need to do a few adaptions to get it home (like a parachute....)

[paul_c]

Docking and 'constructing' by joining craft and/or refulling in orbit is allowed? 

Is "rescue Kerbal from orbit of ....." style contract allowed, since they can't EVA in space? (Or would the contract system never generate such a contract?)

Edited January 28, 2021 by paul_c

[Popestar]

8 minutes ago, paul_c said:

Docking and 'constructing' by joining craft and/or refulling in orbit is allowed? 

Is "rescue Kerbal from orbit of ....." style contract allowed, since they can't EVA in space? (Or would the contract system never generate such a contract?)

Docking is absolutely allowed; it's the only way you can complete the hardest difficulties.

I dont know about the second question; I would assume they aren't even offered because you can't EVA.

[JAFO]

57 minutes ago, paul_c said:

Docking and 'constructing' by joining craft and/or refulling in orbit is allowed? 

Is "rescue Kerbal from orbit of ....." style contract allowed, since they can't EVA in space? (Or would the contract system never generate such a contract?)

"Orbital construction" and "Lawn construction", as Cavemen call it, is most definitely allowed. Actual refuelling simply isn't possible, because Caveman Tech simply doesn't permit resource transfer. (Resource transfer doesn't unlock until the R&D facility is upgraded to level 2, which is outside the scope of this challenge.) Fuel crossflow, however, is possible, and once you have unlocked docking ports, the possibilities are endless.

It's not that rescue missions aren't allowed.. it's just that they're impossible to complete, because EVA can't be done. As to whether or not they would even be offered, I don't know for sure, but as @Popestar says, I'd assume not. But if you're ever offered one, I strongly recommend you don't accept it.

Edited January 28, 2021 by JAFO

[Superfluous J]

35 minutes ago, JAFO said:

It's not that rescue missions aren't allowed.. it's just that they're impossible to complete, because EVA can't be done. As to whether or not they would even be offered, I don't know for sure, but as @Popestar says, I'd assume not. But if you're ever offered one, I strongly recommend you don't accept it.

Well you could ladder-launch an engineer up to the affected pod and construction-mode a parachute, fuel tank, and engine onto it

And if flat-out rescue contracts ever showed up (without being in a pod. Are those still around? I'll admit I never take any rescue/recovery contracts anymore but I recall ones where the Kerbal was just out there in orbit) and you got an engineer, wow that would be an amazing boon as you'd just never need to bring them home Free in-space Kerbal!

[JAFO]

2 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

Well you could ladder-launch an engineer up to the affected pod and construction-mode a parachute, fuel tank, and engine onto it

And if flat-out rescue contracts ever showed up (without being in a pod. Are those still around? I'll admit I never take any rescue/recovery contracts anymore but I recall ones where the Kerbal was just out there in orbit) and you got an engineer, wow that would be an amazing boon as you'd just never need to bring them home Free in-space Kerbal!

Those are some very good points!