Long-term Laythe Mission (pic heavy) - ^_^ With Part 45 ^_^

[Cydonian Monk]

Plus, Squad failed to fix the bug that causes the Mac version of KSP to crash after I play for a while (so much for the hoped-for 1.0 massive bug stomp), so it's frustrating to try to get anything done.

This. I eventually broke down and bought a halfway decent off-the-shelf WinBox just to play games again, mainly because KSP became unplayable for me in 0.25 or so. (Oddly I still set up RSS/RO in 0.90 on my MacBook... just never got very far. The stock texture reducer really helps there.) I'm assuming the crashes your seeing are not related to the mem-leak-y temperature gauges and are instead just due to having a "massive" save file, right? Last time I could even think of loading my "Everything since the Demo" save on a Mac was 0.23.5.... just too big for the game to handle.

I really hope Unity 5 fixes most of these Mac issues. (Which I suspect are more Unity bugs than Squad bugs.)

[undercoveryankee]

Plus, Squad failed to fix the bug that causes the Mac version of KSP to crash after I play for a while (so much for the hoped-for 1.0 massive bug stomp), so it's frustrating to try to get anything done.

1.0 on OS X Yosemite (2009 MacBook Pro with GeForce 9600M graphics) has so far run as long as I've had time to run it after I turned off terrain scatters, turned off SM3 terrain shaders, and set textures to half. At full graphics settings I was seeing out-of-memory within three or four scene changes.

I haven't had time to go back and experiment to figure out which of the graphics changes made the biggest difference. Shaders seem like they would have the most OS-specific code where an OS-specific memory leak could hide.

[Geschosskopf]

In case it helps get your show back on the road, here are some things I've noticed in my own experiments in 1.0.2. Maybe they'll confirm your own research.

I haven't tested the Laythe ships specifically yet. The BirdDog can still fly at KSC, but it's not balanced well (needs to have its CoM and CoL positions tweaked). Also, the severe hammering the Basic Jet engine received means that it won't be able to go as high or fast, and the higher fuel consumption rate will reduce its range. Also, I worry about how well it can drive around on the ground as a rover now because solar cells now obey 1/r², so power for the wheels will be much more limited out in the Jool system.

Basic Jet:

The Isp doesn't seem to change at all anywhere within the altitude at which it works so you no longer need to get as high as possible to stretch fuel. Range is therefore dependent on speed. For a small, single-engine plane, the top speed of about 230m/s seems to occur about 3/4 of the way up to its operational ceiling (say 8km on Kerbin, 6km on Laythe). However, from there on down to the deck, top speed isn't much lower, in the neighborhood of 215m/s. Thus, finding the altitude for absolute top speed doesn't make a significant difference in range. A plane with 1 Basic Jet and 3x 1.25m tanks can fly 1-way 2/3 to 3/4 of the way around Kerbin so might circumnavigate Laythe. IIRC, your BirdDogs have 2 tanks so should still be capable of pretty long trips.

Rover Wheels:

Yeah, you'll probably need fuel cells for those. HOWEVER, there's also the option to use ModuleManager (see under Seaplanes below).

I wouldn't expect the original Laythe SSTO (based on jet engines) to be able to make orbit...but the RASSTO version might because it's built around RAPIERs. The little STUBBY SSTO rocket (also jet power) will be useless in reaching orbit as well. I expect the LadyHawk spaceplane (Turbojet) won't stand a chance to reach orbit, and the Raptor RAPIER version of the spaceplane is probably too draggy to get through the sound barrier. I read a post that said that scoop intakes no longer work as flotation devices...in which case anybody flying the Mallard will be in for a rude shock if he tries to land on water. Also, the Turbojet Mallard isn't going to be accidentally going into orbit anymore. (What are people able to do for seaplanes in KSP 1.0 with no decent flotation devices, accidental or otherwise?)

SSTO Spaceplanes:

The major change here is that no jet engine, not even the RAPIER, can get nearly as high or as fast as before. For example, the RAPIER in jet mode now just flat dies instantly between 24-25km at about 1000m/s. This means you need in excess of 1500m/s dV of rocket just to reach LKO, which means the bulk of your spaceplane now has to be LFO tanks, resulting in huge spaceplanes for their payload compared to before. Also, it's VERY difficult to make an interplanetary spaceplane using anythinge except RAPIERs due to the need to 1) reserve the rear fuselage for the tug's docking port, 2) reduce drag by keeping radial tanks/engines to a minimum, and 3) the major nerfing of the 48-7S in general and the atmospheric performance of the 909. The latter means anything using seperate jets and rockets has to use things like T-30s or Aerospikes.

Some folks have gotten into LKO using LF-only spaceplanes powered by TurboRamjets and LV-Ns, but I haven't messed with this idea myself yet.

The one rather ironic piece of good news regarding spaceplanes is that you no longer need to to worry about asymmetrical flameout because the jets drop dead before they run out of IntakeAir. So no more having to attach 1 engine, then its intakes, then the other engine, then its intakes. You do, however, still need to airhog just a bit. Usually 1 inline intake (shock cone or ram, doesn't seem to matter) and either 1 precooler or a pair of structural radial intakes per engine is all you need. Just using the inline intake won't do it. And do NOT use the old, hoodscoop-looking radial intake on anything you want to go high and fast.

Seaplanes

Yeah, this sucks. However, after a rather nasty crash, I happened to notice that the new stock airbrakes seem to have some bouncy floatiness sorta like the old radial intakes used to. It could be that you could make a plane with retractable hydroplane-type floats this way, which woudl be cool. The main problem I foresee is that the airbrakes are broken when it comes to action groups. While you can assign their various features to action groups in the SPH, your changes don't stick. Instead, the Airbrake ALWAYS reverts to its default of being part of the stock Brake action group. Thus, you can't have a separate bunch of Airbrakes to use as floats. Hopefully there will soon be a stock bugfix mod addressing this. But anyway, I haven't experimented with this yet so don't know if it will actually work.

That leaves the old standard of the Firespitter mod. There are 2 options here. First is to use the pontoon parts that come in the mod. Downside here is HUGE drag. Once I had a spaceplane that would reach orbit, I put it on pontoons and it wouldn't break the sound barrier.

The 2nd option is to use ModuleManager. The Firespitter pontoons work using the module FSbuoyancy, which is all under the hood without any exposed variables. Thus, you could have ONLY the Firespitter.dll in your game, none of the parts, and use ModuleManager to apply the FSbuoyancy module to whatever stock parts you desire, turning those parts into pontoons. If you did this for the old radial intakes, then your could make your existing seaplanes float again (although the huge drag of said old radial intakes would be a detriment to performance so you might have to ModuleManager a tweak there, too). Also note that there's an FSrudder module as well (used by the rear pontoon section) that provides turning ability while on the water .

AND while we're on the subject of Firespitter, it also has the module FSwheel. FSwheel adds motors to landing gear that DO NOT REQUIRE ANY RESOURCES to run. So, to save solarpowered BirdDog rover wheels, you could use ModuleManager to put FSwheel on their rover wheels and drive around all you want, with the solar panels just there for decoration.

EDIT: Turns out FSwheel does in fact require EC. But OTOH, for all powered wheels, the resource consumption seems to be just a separate bookkeeping thing from the actual movement. Thus, you can ModuleManager resource consumption however you want and still get the same driving performance.

Edited May 13, 2015 by Geschosskopf

[Brotoro]

I did a little testing of the Laythe ships in 1.0.2... I was able to get the RASSTO RAPIER powered SSTO rocket to orbit, but I had problems testing the original jet-powered SSTO rocket because the action groups are messed up. First, the parachutes that I repack and deploy with action groups are popping out when I take off (I've had this problem on some of my Duna ships as well)...so I had to bump the ship up a little until the chutes popped, then land it and repack them (or not bother repacking since it's just a boost test). The jet-powered SSTO also has its jet-toggle action broken, so I couldn't stop asymmetrical flameout during test boost (I'll have to edit the save file) -- but the jet engines are very, very weak in lifting the rocket...still, it gets over 10K, at which time its rocket engines and considerable amount if fuel still might be able to make orbit (the ship could get to Low Kerbin Orbit originally, so it was a bit overdesigned for Laythe). But it still needs a proper test.

I couldn't get the Raptor SSTO spaceplane through the sound barrier at all, so no dice there. But maybe I need a better flught profile.

Ah! I tested the Mallard seaplane back on Kerbin, and indeed crashed it upon landing in the water. But after a little more testing I found that I COULD land it on the water if I brought it in at just over stall speed. It floats very low compared to how it used to. But it does takeoff from the water much easier than it used to, without all the loud noise and splashing. But the danger of the much-more-difficult landing means a water landing is NOT something that I would recommend except in case of emergency, since your chance of surviving is lower than it used to be.

Edited May 13, 2015 by Brotoro

[Findthepin1]

are you continuing with laythe?

[Brotoro]

are you continuing with laythe?

At the moment I'm concentrating on my Developing Duna Mission. Once I see in that mission what still works in version 1.0.x and what needs to be adapted to the new rules and the best way to use the new ISRU system, then I can see what ships are still viable on Laythe and make some updates there. I've already done testing of some of the existing Laythe ships in 1.0.2, so I know that certain changes will need to be made.

[stellarator]

I have a request for you, Brotoro:

Your designs have always impressed me, so... Are you planning to create a librry design or sometning else? I will be very pleased if i could use your rover designs that arso functional.

[FlyingPete]

With all the changes that have happened in 1.0, I reckon it would be worthwhile keeping this long-running 'pre-production' save going in a copy of 0.90, and start afresh in 1.0

[Gurt89]

So I wanted to start a Laythe colony, and oh my god I burnt out after getting everything into Laythe orbit. 6 payloads at once is a serious chore. I think im just going to get stuff into LKO and hyper edit to LLO (I'm doing this in career, so I want the financials to be accounted for). I have a new appreciation for this saga.

[Geschosskopf]

So I wanted to start a Laythe colony, and oh my god I burnt out after getting everything into Laythe orbit. 6 payloads at once is a serious chore. I think im just going to get stuff into LKO and hyper edit to LLO (I'm doing this in career, so I want the financials to be accounted for). I have a new appreciation for this saga.

To me, messing with multiple payloads is the fun part. It has many practical advantages over putting everything in 1 big ship, plus that way I get to design more ships and designing is one of the more enjoyable parts of the game to me. Besides, I think it just looks cool to fire off a huge barrage of ships at once. It's not just a mission, it's an invasion .

[Mister Dilsby]

To me, messing with multiple payloads is the fun part. It has many practical advantages over putting everything in 1 big ship, plus that way I get to design more ships and designing is one of the more enjoyable parts of the game to me. Besides, I think it just looks cool to fire off a huge barrage of ships at once. It's not just a mission, it's an invasion .

Quite true--I sent an armada to Duna in 0.90 and enjoyed it a lot. It felt sort of like this:

[RyanRising]

At the moment I'm concentrating on my Developing Duna Mission. Once I see in that mission what still works in version 1.0.x and what needs to be adapted to the new rules and the best way to use the new ISRU system, then I can see what ships are still viable on Laythe and make some updates there. I've already done testing of some of the existing Laythe ships in 1.0.2, so I know that certain changes will need to be made.

I just started reading this series, and I found it funny that back in 0.19, resources were just around the corner. Flash forward and it's taken until 0.27 (officially called 1.0) to get them! At any rate, what you've done here is awesome, and I haven't even read a quarter off it yet!

[Findthepin1]

Now that 1.0.4 has been out for months, are you going to continue the series? I really liked reading it and wish there was more.

[FlyingPete]

Now that 1.0.4 has been out for months, are you going to continue the series? I really liked reading it and wish there was more.

It would be good to see more- maybe the Laythe crew can get that resource harvesting equipment they were promised all that time ago

I suspect some of the equipment might mysteriously have become useless now though, what with the new aero making jet-to-suborbit virtually impossible.

[Brotoro]

It would be good to see more- maybe the Laythe crew can get that resource harvesting equipment they were promised all that time ago

I suspect some of the equipment might mysteriously have become useless now though, what with the new aero making jet-to-suborbit virtually impossible.

I'm still on hiatus from playing KSP.

Yes...the new aero (and especially the reduced capabilities of the jet engines and RAPIERs in jet mode) broke the SSTO rockets and planes I had on Laythe. I did make a new ship that would work that I was going to send out to Laythe, but then one of the fractional updates broke that as well...so I reworked it again...but then another fractional update broke that. I got tired of that...so, as I say, I haven't been playing lately.

[FlyingPete]

It's definitely frustrating when old finely-tuned designs suddenly don't work anymore! What I'd probably do is keep this as a historic save and work on it in 0.90 under that version's physics model, and start afresh with 1.0 for future adventures

[Monkey29399]

Awesome AAR! I haven't managed to read it all though.

[The Flame Cat]

Good goin man!

[DaserTheGamer]

First to refollow since the forum migration 

[Brotoro]

I went to Laythe just now in KSP version 1.0.5, and from close up the surface appears to be suffering from some bizarre disease of the low lands:

I thought this might be caused by the Environmental Visual Enhancements mod, but in the E.V.E. thread there are posts that claim this is a new bug in stock KSP. However, when I uninstall E.V.E., the disease goes away, along with the nice clouds, of course -- but others in the E.V.E. thread claim that it did NOT go away when they uninstalled E.V.E. 

So I am confused.

Can anybody point me to a thread that discusses the stock bug? Or is it really an E.V.E. issue (and is there any known cure)?

Thanks.

[Deddly]

Welcome back, Brotoro! Sorry to hear about your diseased Laythe and I hope you manage to find the cause soon.

[Geschosskopf]

11 hours ago, Brotoro said:

I went to Laythe just now in KSP version 1.0.5, and from close up the surface appears to be suffering from some bizarre disease of the low lands:

......

Can anybody point me to a thread that discusses the stock bug? Or is it really an E.V.E. issue (and is there any known cure)?

Hmm, I'm afraid I can't give you any help with your actual problem, just give some suggestions for rolling with it if you can't fix it.  There are some role-playing opportunities here.  It looks like the sea came up and retreated, leaving behind icky mud flats and/or crude oil stains.  This might have been caused by undersea eruptions, a massive Laythe quake, or even a large asteroid impact.   Or perhaps native life on Laythe, in the form of bacteria, algae, fungi, or some such, has finally emerged from the sea and started making mats along the shore.  Whatever, your guys there got to see it happen and now get to study it.

[Mister Dilsby]

15 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

Hmm, I'm afraid I can't give you any help with your actual problem, just give some suggestions for rolling with it if you can't fix it.  There are some role-playing opportunities here.  It looks like the sea came up and retreated, leaving behind icky mud flats and/or crude oil stains.  This might have been caused by undersea eruptions, a massive Laythe quake, or even a large asteroid impact.   Or perhaps native life on Laythe, in the form of bacteria, algae, fungi, or some such, has finally emerged from the sea and started making mats along the shore.  Whatever, your guys there got to see it happen and now get to study it.

Exactly. I hope my Laythe looks like that when I get there, it's more interesting.

[Geschosskopf]

7 minutes ago, Kuzzter said:

Exactly. I hope my Laythe looks like that when I get there, it's more interesting.

And also, I suspect, MUCH easier to pick good ISRU locations.  I suspect the "high water mark" is at or near the division between the reasonably flat but ore-poor beach and the ore-rich but steep dune biomes.  

[Findthepin1]

The picture looks like some sort of massive overturning of the crust has happened. Bigger than the largest volcanic eruptions. This sort of thing is supposed to have happened on Venus a long time ago. Laythe seems to have underwent a global resurfacing event. Are your kerbals on Laythe dead? I guess E.V.E.'s changes aren't merely visual.

EDIT: Nvm, the coastline is the same. Perhaps it is algae mats emerging, lol. If your Kerbals are still alive, get to the floaty base thing and take a look at the seafloor. As has been suggested, it'd be easiest just to go with it 

Edited February 26, 2016 by Findthepin1