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Weekly Challenge #2 - Air Launch to Orbit


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Thank you to everybody who participated in last week’s inaugural KSP2 weekly challenge. The KSP2_challenges discord channel has received almost 1700 posts, and our team has had endless fun following all your amazing achievements - from first-time Mun landings to multi-vehicle, multi-destination flights that touched down on Eeloo! We’ve loved them all, but we’re especially proud of how supportive this community continues to be of new players who are figuring out orbital mechanics for the first time. This week’s prompt: create an Air Launch to Orbit Rocket — that is, a rocket that’s launched from an aircraft!
·        Primary goal: get an air-launched rocket to low Kerbin orbit
·        Stretch goal: land an air-launched rocket on the Mun.
·        Jeb-level goal: land an air-launched rocket on Duna.
·        Val-level goal: launch an air-launched rocket from Laythe and land on Kerbin.

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4 hours ago, Intercept Games said:

Thank you to everybody who participated in last week’s inaugural KSP2 weekly challenge. The KSP2_challenges discord channel has received almost 1700 posts, and our team has had endless fun following all your amazing achievements - from first-time Mun landings to multi-vehicle, multi-destination flights that touched down on Eeloo! We’ve loved them all, but we’re especially proud of how supportive this community continues to be of new players who are figuring out orbital mechanics for the first time. This week’s prompt: create an Air Launch to Orbit Rocket — that is, a rocket that’s launched from an aircraft!
·        Primary goal: get an air-launched rocket to low Kerbin orbit
·        Stretch goal: land an air-launched rocket on the Mun.
·        Jeb-level goal: land an air-launched rocket on Duna.
·        Val-level goal: launch an air-launched rocket from Laythe and land on Kerbin.

I'll give it a try in KSP 2; I've never quite done this type of thing yet! :)

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I'm trying to work on this challenge as it's a really exciting one, but I haven't managed to find a workaround to the problem that dropped stages become uncontrollable in atmosphere.  Any workarounds anyone know of?
 

Edit - I'll leave the above post up as others may encounter the same issue, but I think what I did wrong was to take a previously vertically integrated ship and attach it to a new horizontally built plane in the VAB (which is possible in KSP1 through subassemblies) which may have resulted in this bug.  This obviously should work, but it appears the workaround will be to just create the whole shebang at once.  I've seen a few videos, so I know it's definitely possible to air launch a rocket in KSP2. I'll have another crack at it!

Edit 2 - Building from scratch half worked in that I can now air launch the rocket (as long as I use control from here on the rocket at launch), This time I encountered the loss of SAS control bug on the second stage of the air launched rocket, as well as the no CommNet bug, so the rocket just spins without hope of recovery.  Will keep trying as I think there's a work around to this one also.

SM

Edited by Speeding Mullet
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I'm trying this! 

Things that are currently getting in the way -- most of these are known issues I'm sure:

  • Have Goliaths been nerfed? I'm trying to launch a Medium-sized rocket (biggest Medium fuel tank, Mk 3 pod), and have a twin-body lifter built around that. With six Goliaths I struggle to reach 10k altitude. It feels like they were more powerful before?
    • Workaround: Add more Goliaths (which slows down the frame rate)
  • Fuel flow bug is draining fuel from the rocket although the decoupler has crossfeed OFF
    • Workaround: Use resource transfer to fill up the tank before decoupling
  • The engine on the rocket fails to start through staging after decoupling -- it coughs a bit like it was out of fuel. It only started after I went into the parts manager and clicked on the start button several times, but by then the rocket had fallen far away from the plane and was pointing down, so it failed
    • Workaround I want to try: pause the game and try to start it manually that way

I'll keep trying!

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Going for Jeb's level.

Mission Report:

Spoiler

Val in the capsule, Tim and Jeb in the plane, ready to launch

lpVMcp0.jpg

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Lift off

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Climbing

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Ready to decouple

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Rocket away

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Views from the plane

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Goodbye

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While Val is starting her climb to orbit

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Jeb and Tim have turned around the plane to go back to the KSC

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Val coasting to apo

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Jeb and Tim prepare to land

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Val has decoupled the booster and is starting the circularization burn

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Jeb and Tim have landed safely

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Parking orbit

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Planned maneuver

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Executed

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Midway course correction (push descending node to encounter)

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Initial Duna trajectory

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After a bit of radial in (and decoupling of the transfer stage), maneuver plan for orbit entry

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After execution

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Deorbit burn completed

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Atmospheric entry on Duna

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Landing

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Val on the surface

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Bug notes:

Spoiler

- Jet engines drain LF from the rocket, I needed to transfer fuel back to the rocket directly before decoupling.

Obviously, the parallel part of the mission has been flown sequentially. However:
- I was unable to successfully load the plane with rocket attached in flight - it immediately destructs on load. I edited the save file for the plane return to KSC to enable unbreakable joints. Note that this was only necessary to get through the reload, the plane flies and lands just fine without the rocket attached.

x2bhkIt.jpg

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After a bit more testing yesterday and today I landed on a new design that utilised a Mk1 command pod instead of probe cores.  For some reason they just seem to work better at the moment, and don't experience as many inter-stage bugs as probe cores.  With this new design I was able to complete the mission.  Here's the full mission report

I was once again blown away by the music, but this time the scenery from the surface as well (having only seen it from a flyby previously).  KSP2 is capturing my imagination all over again in a way that KSP1 did in its early days.  Here's a couple of teaser shots from the above full mission report:

IpOnggQ.jpg

Chase plane operated by Goliath National Products, all rights reserved, maybe, what rights, its just a camera buddy.

 

MHFKoQR.jpg

Selfie capture technology provided by Dinkelstein Kerman.  Featuring the latest in "Behiiiind youuuu lenses".

Had a great deal of fun doing this mission.  I'm genuinely not sure if I've ever air launched a rocket to Duna before!  Looking forward to next week's challenge!

SM

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I did the stretch goal! This rocket ought to be able to make it to Duna too, there's lots of dV left, and I could always add a drogue chute to the nose. Maybe I'll try that later.

Edit: I tried it later and did it! We have reached Jeb-level!

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Original post with the stretch goal level spoilered.

Spoiler

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Edited by Periple
Went to Duna!
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Neeaaaarly done the Val-level challenge. If I'm reading it right, you can leave Kerbin anyway you like, but have to land a plane on Laythe, take off, and air launch a rocket capable of returning to Kerbin. Managed most of that...

IlMLK12.jpg

(The wings & landing gear detach to leave a 2-stage rocket) but misread the challenge and brought a docking port to refuel in orbit... which is probably cheating. 

Still, a bit of optimisation on Version 2 should do it!

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Made it to LKO with my first (successful) plane in KSP ever! I put the vertical stabilizer on upside down so I could fit the rocket up there. Controls feel great and I gotta say: I love how sleek these shiny new parts look.

BHSiSqq.jpgrULS4V8.jpger60QD7.jpgsTZMEZ1.jpg

Edited by Allomancer
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Done. Now to up the ante and get something to Laythe and back. I enjoyed the biplane a lot! These weekly challenges are really fun!

 

4 hours ago, Allomancer said:

Made it to LKO with my first (successful) plane in KSP ever! I put the vertical stabilizer on upside down so I could fit the rocket up there. Controls feel great and I gotta say: I love how sleek these shiny new parts look.

BHSiSqq.jpgrULS4V8.jpger60QD7.jpgsTZMEZ1.jpg

The colors and design of what you built is awesome! Well done for your first plane!!

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1 hour ago, justinrobo said:

how did you guys get past the active vessel message? every attempt i can not swap over to the rocket im launching after seperation

Took me a bit of experimenting, so here's a couple of things you could try to get you going:

1) Use a manned capsule instead of a probe core on the rocket stage - Manned capsules seem to suffer this issue less from my testing.
2) "Control from here" on the final stage's controllable core/pod before launch - Means that when you decouple or stage, you don't need to switch to a different craft as you are already controlling the separated stage.
3) Build the rocket stage as the first part, then do 2).
4) Quick save just after separation, then quick load and try switching craft again - this workaround has worked numerous times for me.

 

Let us know how you go, and good luck with your mission!

SM

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7 hours ago, justinrobo said:

how did you guys get past the active vessel message? every attempt i can not swap over to the rocket im launching after seperation

I re-rooted to the rocket's capsule, I assumed control stays with root part.

But, I also flew back the plane (loaded a quicksave for that part of the mission). You can get around the "observer can't leave active vessel" message if you switch to the other craft by double-clicking it (pausing the game makes this easier), instead of using the next/prev vessel keybinds.

Edited by Draradech
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I've been trying to complete this challenge for 4 days straight now. Bugs and corrupt saves are making the game unbearable for something that would've taken me not more than 1-2h to do in KSP1.

If you are going to give us challenges, do so after fixing the current dumpster fire pre-alpha your publisher rushed you to release to the public first.

Edited by MARL_Mk1
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Finished the Val challenge!

NKHin0C.png

"Wait, I'm on the runway?"

"3, 2, 1..."

"Argh!"

n5S3NyO.png

Hey, it was fine. Apparently.

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Spaceplane separation over Laythe.

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On the beach, soakin' up the rays. Er, radiation from the massive gas giant. Whatever.

garGasC.png

Left the telemetry in because oof you can get some speed out of those whiplashes - AP up to 84k on jets alone!

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Wings? Who needs 'em. See, the rocket airlaunches *from* the plane. Ahem.

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The lonely trip home...

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Touchdown! Safe and sound, er, halfway up this mountainside.

Look, it's fine. I got Bill back to Kerbin, he can sort his own taxi fare from there.

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After many issues / bugs I finally got something that works. Now that I've seen other submissions I super impressed what others pulled off! I've never done an air launch like this before and look forward to doing more once the game has had a few patches.

 

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Edited by zynar
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