Science

[Popestar]

@Anonymous49

To use MJ, you have to:

1.  Have a MechJeb module on your rocket.  These are found in the Command and Control tab of parts.

2.  Be in flight.

So, build your rocket like normal, but make sure to add a MJ controller.  Then launch and get into orbit.  Once in orbit, open MJ and take it from there.  You have to have the requisite technology unlocked to use the docking piece...or use the scripting module (which is found in the MJ menu).

This is very basic, and thats because I haven't played around with docking in MJ yet.  But that should at least give you a starting point!

[Anonymous49]

there is no ascent guidance for me

1 minute ago, Clamp-o-Tron said:

First open the MechJeb tab, and press the button that says "Ascent Guidance." Type in the approximate orbit of your target (I always go 10% lower if that's outside of the atmosphere, to save a spot of delta-V and time in rendezvous.), and enable guidance. If all goes well and your rocket is built well, you'll reach orbit.

Next, close that window and pull up the "Rendezvous Autopilot". Set your destination as target and enable guidance.

After you arrive within a couple hundred meters of your target (you may want to manually disable the autopilot, as it gets buggy very near to the target), find a way to right-click on any part in your target vessel, with a bit of messing around with the camera, and click "Aim Camera". This will help with accuracy as you right-click on your docking port and set it as your target. If this option doesn't show up, get your ship closer manually until it does. Reset your camera now.

Finally, open MJ's "Docking Autopilot", right click on your docking port and select "control from here". The yellow warnings on the Docking Autopilot window should go away, and you can enable it to take you in to dock (with significant RCS thruster use, but that's a small problem).

 

what about the "ascent guidance"

[VoidSquid]

4 minutes ago, Anonymous49 said:

ok

Right now I need to catch some sleep, already past midnight here, and I have work in a couple of hours.

Send me a PM if you're interested, then we can agree upon a time for streaming.

[Anonymous49]

Just now, VoidSquid said:

Right now I need to catch some sleep, already past midnight here, and I have work in a couple of hours.

Send me a PM if you're interested, then we can agree upon a time for streaming.

it's not midnight here. It's morning

but i think a vid would work

[Clamp-o-Tron]

You are playing in career mode, right. Some advanced MechJeb modules are locked behind technology nodes, as detailed by (only!) this 7-year old Steam forum post: 

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=193177293

If you don't have that module, you probably don't have the other two, so you can't really do anything.  Sorry.

Edited January 15, 2021 by Clamp-o-Tron

[VoidSquid]

2 minutes ago, Anonymous49 said:

there is no ascent guidance for me

There is, but you probably need to advance further into the tech tree, MJ's ascend guidance is available when you have unlocked Unmanned Tech.

[Anonymous49]

ADVANCED UNMANNED TECH?!?!?!

[Clamp-o-Tron]

You can work around this by closing your game and creating an empty folder in your GameData simply called "MechJebUnlocked". This will cause MechJeb to give all the modules to you, always.

[VoidSquid]

11 minutes ago, Popestar said:

but make sure to add a MJ controller

If I remember correctly, MJ has been changed a while ago to be partless?

On 6/4/2019 at 8:59 AM, sarbian said:

MJ is is partless if you also have ModuleManager installed

Anyway, guys, I really need to sign off for now, good night everyone o/ 

Edited January 15, 2021 by VoidSquid

[Anonymous49]

6 minutes ago, Clamp-o-Tron said:

You can work around this by closing your game and creating an empty folder in your GameData simply called "MechJebUnlocked". This will cause MechJeb to give all the modules to you, always.

does it work??? hope it does

time: 9:46 am 15/1/2021

sadly, it didn't

[Clamp-o-Tron]

Do you have Module Manager? I assumed you did because I thought that was a requirement of MechJeb. Go install it if you haven't and want my workaround to do its job.

[Anonymous49]

5 minutes ago, Clamp-o-Tron said:

Do you have Module Manager? I assumed you did because I thought that was a requirement of MechJeb. Go install it if you haven't and want my workaround to do its job.

no but it still work without it with the newest version

i cannot find module manager

where can i download module manager?

[Clamp-o-Tron]

If you use CKAN, you can just search for it. If not:

Scroll down to the Downloads section and click on version 4.1.4, then do the normal mod installation process with ModuleManager.4.1.4.dll ending up in your GameData folder.

[Anonymous49]

great it worked

i have autopilot now

it even help me eject my side boosters just as it stopped burning

it even got a great orbit of 80001m, while i can only do something like 80255m

auto timewarp lol

[Popestar]

@VoidSquid, @Anonymous49

If you guys end up doing a stream, is there any chance you could record it and post it so we can see it?

[Anonymous49]

mechjeb is great, i changed my plans to dock

[Anonymous49]

i like mechjeb except that when i rendezvous it just suddenly turned suborbital, why?

[Anonymous49]

i can only rely on mechjeb during ascent and to a perfect suborbital trajectory. nothing else

[VoidSquid]

5 hours ago, Popestar said:

is there any chance you could record it

Umh... I usually do not record any streams, sorry. But we could meet for a stream too, what do you think?

[Spricigo]

On 1/14/2021 at 9:48 PM, Anonymous49 said:

OK, lets see what we can design with that. (the idea is to be cheap and cheerful )

 

For a basic satellite we start with what we need/want when  deployed. The most essential (contracts ask for it) is probecore, antenna and power generator. We will take the OKTO (because of SAS), a communotron 16 and a pair of solar panels. Let's also  and a thermometer (in case we get a 'do science in orbit' contract later) and, given the OKTO limitations, a Z-100 battery and a small reaction wheel. Finally, lets put that inside a fairing for the atmospheric part of the flight. That is our payload,   0.310t, cost 2800 Funds.

A FL-T100 tank (smallest available) with a Terrier engine will provide 1.5 Km/s of deltaV with TWR4.4 (funny how our weakest engine is 'too powerful"). We will  keep the terrier but swap the tank to the larget FL-T400 for 3.5km and TWR2. Our craft reaches 3t and 3700funds.

Bellow the terrier we put a stack decoupler and build the launch vehicle. 4 FL-t400 and a Reliant will provide 2,3km/s with TWR1,5 at sea level. For good measure we will add some autostruts (grandparent)*, set fuel priority* from bottom to top and add 4 basic fin near the bottom of the craft. Finally, we give a small inclination towards east and hold it with a launch clamp. The craft cost 7300 funds, with 13.5t and 21 parts.

You may download it Here or try to replicate from my description. But more important, try to understand the process described, how we started with the top(later use) and worked our way to the bottom (early use), how at each step we keep to the essential and not much else. If you have doubt, ask. 

*requires Advanced Tweakables enabled in the game settings.

[Popestar]

10 hours ago, Spricigo said:

but swap the tank to the larget FL-T400

You might want to switch this for the FL-T200.  With the 400 you might end up wasting fuel once you get into the orbit you're looking for.

[Anonymous49]

my plan is to get a karman line orbit (that's how i call it)

19 hours ago, Spricigo said:

OK, lets see what we can design with that. (the idea is to be cheap and cheerful )

 

For a basic satellite we start with what we need/want when  deployed. The most essential (contracts ask for it) is probecore, antenna and power generator. We will take the OKTO (because of SAS), a communotron 16 and a pair of solar panels. Let's also  and a thermometer (in case we get a 'do science in orbit' contract later) and, given the OKTO limitations, a Z-100 battery and a small reaction wheel. Finally, lets put that inside a fairing for the atmospheric part of the flight. That is our payload,   0.310t, cost 2800 Funds.

A FL-T100 tank (smallest available) with a Terrier engine will provide 1.5 Km/s of deltaV with TWR4.4 (funny how our weakest engine is 'too powerful"). We will  keep the terrier but swap the tank to the larget FL-T400 for 3.5km and TWR2. Our craft reaches 3t and 3700funds.

Bellow the terrier we put a stack decoupler and build the launch vehicle. 4 FL-t400 and a Reliant will provide 2,3km/s with TWR1,5 at sea level. For good measure we will add some autostruts (grandparent)*, set fuel priority* from bottom to top and add 4 basic fin near the bottom of the craft. Finally, we give a small inclination towards east and hold it with a launch clamp. The craft cost 7300 funds, with 13.5t and 21 parts.

You may download it Here or try to replicate from my description. But more important, try to understand the process described, how we started with the top(later use) and worked our way to the bottom (early use), how at each step we keep to the essential and not much else. If you have doubt, ask. 

*requires Advanced Tweakables enabled in the game settings.

when I just built it my satellite costs 1880

btw what happens if i accept two of the same contract? (taking data from space around kerbin)

[paul_c]

I've never seen 2x "data from space around xxxxxx" contracts be generated at the same time. I have, however seen very similar satellite contracts pop up. And since the criteria only requires stability in the asked-for orbit for 10 secs, its possible to send a satellite up, position it for one contract, then reposition it for another. Personally I've never done this though, I feel its not within the spirit of what was intended (and its a single player offline game.....you are only cheating yourself!)

HOWEVER there is obvious merit in being able to combine similar contracts together. For example, you can launch one big rocket, and have 2, 3 or more satellites detach then be deployed in their requested orbits.

My latest favourite is to do 2 rescue contracts in one mission - I have a 2 crew rescue vessel with a remote control pod so its sent into orbit empty, then rendezvouses with the first rescue, then flies to the second.

I am sure you can think of other examples where 2 or more contracts can be combined in one launch.

[Anonymous49]

i brought my satellite up and logged my thermometer, got 0 science, transmitted that, boom! contract completed

2 minutes ago, paul_c said:

I've never seen 2x "data from space around xxxxxx" contracts be generated at the same time. I have, however seen very similar satellite contracts pop up. And since the criteria only requires stability in the asked-for orbit for 10 secs, its possible to send a satellite up, position it for one contract, then reposition it for another. Personally I've never done this though, I feel its not within the spirit of what was intended (and its a single player offline game.....you are only cheating yourself!)

HOWEVER there is obvious merit in being able to combine similar contracts together. For example, you can launch one big rocket, and have 2, 3 or more satellites detach then be deployed in their requested orbits.

My latest favourite is to do 2 rescue contracts in one mission - I have a 2 crew rescue vessel with a remote control pod so its sent into orbit empty, then rendezvouses with the first rescue, then flies to the second.

I am sure you can think of other examples where 2 or more contracts can be combined in one launch.

 

i only used 1 satellite for that, 2 contracts completed

[paul_c]

On 1/15/2021 at 3:29 AM, Anonymous49 said:

i like mechjeb except that when i rendezvous it just suddenly turned suborbital, why?

You probably weren't paying attention and used large changes in velocity which dropped the Pe below 70,250m, then once its in the atmosphere the drag sent it down.

19 minutes ago, Anonymous49 said:

my plan is to get a karman line orbit (that's how i call it)

 

You'll need to achieve (approximately) the orbit asked for, to fulfil a satellite contract. There is a bit of leeway on the exact numbers. DO NOT assume they're going to be low orbits - I've seen things asked for past the moon and beyond!