Caveman my Nano-crystalline Diamond attempt

[Blaarkies]

5 hours ago, paul_c said:

I'm getting good at clicking...and clicking....and clicking the mouse on the contract screen. 95% of the contracts are suboptimal, but "science from surface/space around Kerbin/Mun/Minmus" can be completed in 6 clicks and pay £2000-£6000. Since the rocket costs about £12000, 2 of these can pay for a mission. Lately, the contract style "satellite around Mun....." has come up, these pay about £10k so doing one of these basically pays for the mission. Some of them even earn science points!

You are making extremely great progress on this. Are you going to continue this savegame outside the challenge once you complete it? Would be pretty cool, its like super-hard mode, but all the grindy bits are already done (except for those building upgrades )

For money I found satellite contracts very profitable. Pick 2 contracts that are close together, and then launch a single satellite to fulfill that mission. Sometime the solar-station contract shows up, which is also really easy with the addon boosters.

[paul_c]

1 hour ago, Blaarkies said:

Are you going to continue this savegame outside the challenge once you complete it?

I doubt it! I may start exploring the world of KSP mods though - there look to be a lot out there.

 

 

 

Anyway....here's today's update. As previously hinted, the focus is now on the Mun and the tactic of accepting a "satellite in Mun Polar orbit" then fulfilling it with my lander/reorbiter is working well. Because of the limited parts, I'll never be asked for more than temp/pressure/goo/SJ (which it already has). Also worth noting, accepting 2x Polar contracts is NOT a great idea, they can be up to 90deg apart (in LAN), unlike equitorial contracts. So its a case of

1. Accept contract
2. Launch rocket to the Mun
3. Put into wide elliptical orbit
4. Adjust Pe to match the contract
5. Do a big inclination change
6. Adjust Ap (and maybe Pe) to fulfil contract
7. Come down to (say) 12x15 orbit
8. Pick a new biome to land in
9. Land in it (not missed yet!)
10. Take off and reorbit

More Mun shots:

Small design iterations (mainly shuffling fuel around) and better piloting and I'm improving on deltaV in LKO. 3290m/s:

 

Getting better, 3331m/s:

Then a sweet contract to test a fairing came along! Due to the 18t limit, I need to reduce fuel to accommodate the weight of the fairing, so on paper its performance is lower:

BUT the lower drag really helps the flight. Its also much easier to fly. 3456m/s deltaV:

Also I'm at the stage where I can 'trade' reputation for money, in the admin building:

Valentina is getting worried. I enquired on her clothes size, and have ordered a size 12, size 14 and size 16 adult nappy and let the seams out of her spacesuit. I wonder what the plan is.......???

[paul_c]

I'm still plodding along with Mun science gathering. I've done about half of the 17 biomes now - tried and failed to find "Polar Lowlands" but I've found a few other new ones to me. The tactic of taking a contract and doing it first is working well - I think I'm in profit. And I've planned out the total cost of the Mun stuff, since I know how many biomes, recovery trips etc are needed.

In other news, the planning of the inter-planetary spaceship is going well, its 95% of the way there. And I have launched the first two components into space, to be assembled (docked together) in LKO. They are the antenna modules, once the rocket and other essential components are considered, there's only so many you can include and the fuel tanks are optimised so the remaining one (AKA 3rd stage) is nearly full. It has a detachable engine/controller and docking ports both ends but retains the fuel tank/battery/reaction wheel:

8 antennas should give me 475Mm range (and 16, 800Mm range) which means if I pull off the trip to Duna but don't get back into the Kerbin SOI, I have half a chance of transmitting the science data anyway (from nearby-ish) and it might not be game over. 

[xendelaar]

fascinating read!

[Jacke]

7 hours ago, paul_c said:

I'm still plodding along with Mun science gathering. I've done about half of the 17 biomes now - tried and failed to find "Polar Lowlands" but I've found a few other new ones to me.

This is the page to start with:

https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Kerbol_System

Which gets you this:

https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Mun

And then this:

https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/File:MunBiomeMap.png

Which has a link to this:

Probable best way to find the Polar Lowlands is to go for the Mun's South Pole.

[paul_c]

I tried that, I spent about an hour doing polar orbits and staring at KerbNet as I traversed the south pole. It shows lat/lon and the area "name" but not biome name (unless I'm missing something?) but it does show a difference in shading on the display too, which I think relates to the biome. I saw patches of a different shading but in most cases they are tiny specs with no real prospect of pinpointing one to land on.

So I tried the north pole. I had heard <6km counted as "polar lowlands" somewhere in my Googling. I landed 3 times in areas under 6km alt but they all registered as "polar", 4th time (it is dark because you're landing in a deep valley/canyon in a polar region) I crashed and it wiped out about half the vehicle. The controller and SJ survived...but I was still in "poles".

If I'm desperate I'll try this again but for now I'll move on to the others (I can afford to miss 1 or 2 Mun biomes). All others look possible/easier to land in thanks to the map - that's a slightly different one than I found. The map above has some errors/omissions (maybe due to different KSP version) and I found some errors on the Minmus map too.....but that's part of the fun of the Caveman challenge!

[paul_c]

This is the 'best' map I found:

Don't forget its a Mercator Projection so the poles are distorted, that lovely blue band of "polar lowlands" is a small blob (somewhere!)

[Blaarkies]

45 minutes ago, paul_c said:

I tried that, I spent about an hour doing polar orbits and staring at KerbNet as I traversed the south pole. It shows lat/lon and the area "name" but not biome name (unless I'm missing something?)

I forgot about this in my post on the Caveman challenge thread. There are different KerbNet types for probe core: the default shows only the height map, while the more advanced cores will show biome data, and i think there is a third style?

So the Staysputnik core won't show any biome data 

[paul_c]

2 minutes ago, Blaarkies said:

I forgot about this in my post on the Caveman challenge thread. There are different KerbNet types for probe core: the default shows only the height map, while the more advanced cores will show biome data, and i think there is a third style?

So the Staysputnik core won't show any biome data 

Just had a quick check. The Stayputnik and OCTO controllers don't have any variations to select from in the VAB, which for other parts are normally colours or shrouded/bare engines etc - ie just visual, not functional, variations.

In flight/in use, there's a "cycle display mode" button but it doesn't seem to change anything for me. In the Kerbnet itself, there is a readout of:

body
altitude
target lat/lon
center (sp) lat/lon
(field of view control slider)
area name, eg "Zone 72-K"

I don't see biome available anywhere. Somewhere on the internet might be documented, a list of area names and their corresponding biome though? Or a biome by lat/lon lookup?

Or does "cycle display mode" show something else at really low altitudes, for example <1000m? I know some of the scanners come to life at very low altitude.

[Blaarkies]

7 minutes ago, paul_c said:

Or does "cycle display mode" show something else at really low altitudes, for example <1000m? I know some of the scanners come to life at very low altitude.

That all sounds correct from what i remember, the little buttons can remove the grid overlay, set auto-refresh, field-of-view angle (zoom), and stuff. For Stayputnik and OCTO cores, there's only the default "display mode" showing the height map (even at lower altitudes). So i think what you saw is everything you got from them.

For the Rovemat core, it switches to a special mode when landed where it can view a larger area. I think the MK2-core also has a special ability like this.

For the coordinates -> biome lookup, there are these maps. Still have to search "by hand", unless their API exposes some of this data

https://ksp.deringenieur.net/

[paul_c]

8 hours ago, paul_c said:

This is the 'best' map I found:

Don't forget its a Mercator Projection so the poles are distorted, that lovely blue band of "polar lowlands" is a small blob (somewhere!)

And there's inaccuracies in this map too!!! Oh the fun!!!

ETA: I've found the discrepancy (so far): midlands and lowlands are swapped around. I had made a non-precision landing some while ago early on, and had landed in Midlands. Then I tried Lowlands but hit Midlands again....So this time I tried for a 'Midlands' area on the map and it registered as Lowlands - so all good there!

Fortunately, the remaining biomes I need are all large areas on the map so it should be easier from now on. And my overall plan allows me to leave 2 biomes unvisited (I would need to land on 2x Ike biomes though).

Edited March 1, 2021 by paul_c

[paul_c]

The Mun landings are plodding along:

3 to go now. Then 21643363 dockings.

HOWEVER.....big news!!! Today marks the dawn of an era of new space exploration at our spaceport! Kerbal'd flight outside of Kerbin's SOI!

The astronauts had seen the latest designs for spaceships and were very disgruntled due to no parachutes or heatshields! Some of them signed a petition, however because there was only 2 signatures, I ignored it. I did partly make up for it by taking them all out for a big meal last night though, to Pizza Hut. Val wanted the 9" but we persuaded her to upgrade to the "Meat Feast" 14" with a side portion of garlic bread, extra toppings and a large banana split dessert. She somehow managed to fit it all in, and at the end of the evening she exclaimed "I'm so full, I won't need to eat for a week!". That's handy........

We also let her choose the colours (could have shown a little more imagination, Val?):

This is a special 3rd stage with a detachable Spark engine which is mainly used for the circularisation burn, and tiny radially mounted "Spider" engines to allow for a docking port each end. This is the "command" stage for the interplanetary space station, which will remain in orbit while Jeb flies a more powerful version with science kit and landing capability. It will also be used, as needed, to shuffle around modules in space:

[paul_c]

Mini update: The penultimate Mun landing was done with a slight redesign of the lander, using a detachable Science Jr (to save weight) and Science Store Box. Its role is to do a landing, then visit and dock with a number of other lander/reorbiters to consolidate the data and mate with the actual returner later on, lowering its fuel usage and leaving more for a gentler return. Of course, with so many dockings to do, a little optimisation is needed:

"East Crater" is the only biome I'm yet to visit (I'll scrap Polar Lowlands!) and I'll do similar for the remaining dockings, taking the opportunity to time its take-off (from the Mun) and put it into the best orbit to rendezvous with its targets.

The previous docked craft is left on and its fuel is used to help the rendezvous. On this occasion it was jettisoned very soon before the next docking, so there's a bit of congestion in space....

 

[paul_c]

Today was "dockings" day......lots and lots of dockings.....:

But eventually, after a lot of head-scratching figuring out the best sequence due to different inclinations and orbits, I had docked with all the science-gathering lander-reorbiters. I did about 8, mainly on the equatorial plane, with the first lander-gatherer. Then a trip to the last biome with the second lander-gatherer and a wait until the ideal launch window and an inclined trajectory to meet 4 more dockings until I used up the fuel in that one. Then the "returner" with chutes and heatshield went to the Mun and docked a further 3 times. That's a lot of science in one box!:

Leaving Mun's SOI and safely returning to Kerbin with about 300m/s excess fuel was uneventful, because the science store box is light and sturdy:

The big science haul pretty much buys me anything I need to complete now. Many of the tech tree squares are superfluous due to the 18t limit, though. I still need 354.8 science points, so an interplanetary trip is planned and I am finalising the tweaks of the more critical modules and doing some detailed mission planning to ensure it will perform nicely once in space.

[paul_c]

The orbital construction of the Inter-Planetary ship begins. First a fuel module (more on this later) is joined to a "main" module (with 10x docking ports and one at the end too):

Extension module (+10x docking ports, plus one at each end):

Crew module B (Val). Its placed here initially, to make a later rearrangement easier:

Antenna pack 1:

Antenna Pack 2:

Crew module A (Jeb). This one does the science gatherings and landings:

The fuel module is the first to go on, the idea being it will be used up with the main ship doing the rendezvous and docking manoeuvres, then towards the end of construction, jettisoned and replaced with a fresh, full fuel module for the long trip.

[Blaarkies]

You sure you have enough docking ports there?  Just kidding, but it looks like its going to be an amazing craft when its done!

What did you use to determine if there are enough antennae to reach Duna? I know the equations are available somewhere, but I was wondering if there is some more visual tool out there, like the dv-planner or ejection planner 

It would be cool to have an overview map of the planets, and simply plop satellites on it with some configuration of comms and see what can link up after setting difficulty settings and such

[paul_c]

There aren't enough to reach Duna, its just something to have on it just in case I can't intercept Kerbin again. I figured that 16x aerials gives 800Mm range, so plan B is that if that happens I can transmit the data for around half the science, then either do more contracts or launch a trip to Eve too. I would be almost dead though, and I'd need to fund ~600k for another astronaut pilot. It would be a big setback. (And I'd still need to have visited Duna!!)

[JAFO]

6 hours ago, Blaarkies said:

What did you use to determine if there are enough antennae to reach Duna? I know the equations are available somewhere, but ...

For a Caveman, putting together enough antennae to reach Duna or Eve just isn't really feasible.

The only relay antenna available to Cavemen is the HG-5. In testing, I found that with L3 tracking stations, a cluster of 88 HG-5s orbiting Eve gave an 11% signal at Eve, when Eve was at closest approach to Kerbin (so for 90% of its orbit, Eve was still out of range, and Duna was just never gonna happen). I estimate that to do the same thing with L1 tracking would need something on the order of 500-1000 HG-5s, so unless someone comes along who has a serious masochistic streak, I don't expect to ever see it happen in a Caveman run.

(But I'd love to be proven wrong!)

Edited March 5, 2021 by JAFO

[paul_c]

This phase of the challenge is grindy too. I am constructing the inter-planetary spaceship with no real idea of its eventual performance, nor its performance requirement. Its all based on guesstimates from 'what feels like' enough fuel, etc. Also because of the lack of planning nodes etc, the approach and intercept of Duna, Ike and the return is likely to be much more haphazard/random, so there's plenty of excess fuel. 

2nd module, more fuel in the grey tank. The module's engine/controller has just been pinged off:

 

3rd (a 'single' science pack):

4th, more science (single):

5th, more fuel, with another approaching in the distance:

6th was a 'double' science module. More space junk pinged off too:

7 and 8, more science and fuel:

9....(starting to lose count):

10 I think? Its getting difficult to see the modules without rotating the ship around and using pen & paper to keep tally:

Lost count now, but there's more stuff:

36tons and 165 parts in LKO isn't bad for Caveman Challenge:

I think there's 11 modules to go, then I'll need to wait (timewarp) for the ideal transfer window to Duna. I've no idea how I'm going to do the burn, it will be slow (1x Terrier engine) so the ejection angle will be anyone's guess, and with no accurate dV readings off the staging readout either, and a meaningless ship velocity due to the long burn, I might just do a guesstimate based on timing the burn until Ap is 84Mm, then adding say 10% or so more burn and see what happens. Or splitting the burn into "get out of Kerbin SOI" then another with the map to touch Duna's orbit?

I know I can intercept Duna in a foolproof way - if I'm behind it, I'll circularise my solar orbit to slightly smaller than Duna's (but the amount smaller than its SOI), and if I'm ahead, I'll circularise a bit bigger. Its hopelessly inefficient but guaranteed to intercept (so long as I'm on the correct inclination....)

[Blaarkies]

12 hours ago, paul_c said:

... and a meaningless ship velocity due to the long burn, I might just do a guesstimate based on timing the burn until Ap is 84Mm, then adding say 10% or so more burn and see what happens.

You can look at the current orbital velocity while the ship is still near PE. If Duna requires a 1100m/s dv burn, then just make sure the current velocity is 2270m/s + 1100m/s, so if it says 3370m/s your are good to go. I used this for my Eve transfer, it got really close. At least its slightly cheaper fixing a solar orbit for Duna compared to Eve.

[JAFO]

On 3/7/2021 at 7:51 AM, paul_c said:

I am constructing the inter-planetary spaceship with no real idea of its eventual performance, nor its performance requirement. Its all based on guesstimates from 'what feels like' enough fuel, etc.

Ok! excrement just got serious... awesome!

Fantastic work on your ship so far. Well done!

 

On 3/7/2021 at 7:51 AM, paul_c said:

I've no idea how I'm going to do the burn, it will be slow (1x Terrier engine) so the ejection angle will be anyone's guess, and with no accurate dV readings off the staging readout either, and a meaningless ship velocity due to the long burn, I might just do a guesstimate based on timing the burn until Ap is 84Mm, then adding say 10% or so more burn and see what happens. Or splitting the burn into "get out of Kerbin SOI" then another with the map to touch Duna's orbit?

Not having done it myself, there's a lot here I can't comment on, but I can make one suggestion. When getting out of Kerbin SOI, don't go for a single long burn.. make use of  the Oberth Effect and put in a few periapsis kicks to get there. You'll need to be a little careful of the Mun's location of course, but it will save you some fuel.

Edited March 8, 2021 by JAFO

[king of nowhere]

can't you send a few more engines? it would only take one additional module

[paul_c]

4 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

can't you send a few more engines? it would only take one additional module

I did think about multiple engines, or having a T45 engine for the Duna burn, but I decided against it for a few reasons:

1. It will be difficult to attach multiple engines on multiple modules 'in line'
2. Its going to wobble/oscillate when an engine is thrusting. Last time on the big Minmus spaceship thing, the wobble was severe enough to mean I could only use about 1/3 throttle of a Terrier anyway
3. Other aspects of the burn are going to be very approximate anyway, for example the amount of dV, managing the staging with undocking stuff, etc . And without manoeuvre planning anyway, its always going to be a thing which just needs a lump of thrust near Kerbin, then a bunch of adjustment later.

I realised too, that there's no point having more engines than command modules - they're excess weight. I'm (now) in the vacuum of space, the only time I need a certain TWR is later on, "can I land on Ike" (I ought to actually check its physically possible with the Terrier and the fuel!!!)

Anyway......the drudgery of supply missions to fly the fuel up is almost over:

I have one more module to deliver, then I can plan for leaving Kerbin. Then it will be (hopefully) one more flight from KSC to deliver the recovery module.

Technically.....I only need 2x command modules on it for the Ike landings (when the thing splits into a station and a lander)......Val....you've seen the film "The Martian", right? I promise I'll come back for you.......a bit later.

[ffx]

The ship have a ton of modules, hope the Kraken spare you from its tentacles @paul_c
yes the kraken is a squid 

Edited March 9, 2021 by ffx

[JAFO]

14 minutes ago, ffx said:

The ship have a ton of modules, hope the Kraken spare you from its tentacles @paul_c 

I suspect the worst that might happen would be some docking ports that get themselves confused and end up locked in the wrong state. Fortunately, that's not hard to fix, thanks to the KML - Persistence file editor.

Edited March 9, 2021 by JAFO