I am full of grief and coffee

[Aragosnat]

Oh, and here's something interesting.

Test one flameout altitude and speed:

Test two flameout altitude and speed:

Anyone notice anything interesting?

#EDIT: Both tests were run at max possible thruster strength regardless of altitude. Throttle was only eased back only to prevent overheating.

Yeah. IT is called the atmosphere was slowing you down as you where using to much thrust. Weird I know. Basic speed guid in order to have best fuel efficency is Under 10 km is 250 m/s (only one I know for sure) 10-20 km speedshould be under 800 m/s might be able to go as high as 1000 m/s; 20-30 km is under 1200 m/s somewhere. I know there was a guide to how fast you should go somewhere. But,basicly if you are getting flames to appear around your ship. You are wasting fuel by pushing to hard gainst what little or a lot of air is there.

[Mr. Rogue Ace]

~snip~

~Whackjob

Don't worry, I've heard of KSP before what must've been around .15 and didn't even acknowledged it.

I think I confused it for SCP, which I did knew what that was...

Just got it last month....

[Whackjob]

Yeah. IT is called the atmosphere was slowing you down as you where using to much thrust. Weird I know. Basic speed guid in order to have best fuel efficency is Under 10 km is 250 m/s (only one I know for sure) 10-20 km speedshould be under 800 m/s might be able to go as high as 1000 m/s; 20-30 km is under 1200 m/s somewhere. I know there was a guide to how fast you should go somewhere. But,basicly if you are getting flames to appear around your ship. You are wasting fuel by pushing to hard gainst what little or a lot of air is there.

I actually clarified that already. Note in the edit I said that both tests were run at top speed. It's the asparagus staging you're not seeing. The lower picture had one more set of drop tanks than the first had.

[Aragosnat]

My bad then. And well both look like the same ship. XD Should have added more detail to what was done in each picture. But, also I'm still slightly correct too. Depending on when you throttled to cooled down. You could have still saved a little bit in fuel. And also the lag that thing must have. Like another said physics catching up and what I have mentioned.

Now the question is which one was the asperagis and which one was not or where the both veggies?

[Whackjob]

Both were. One just had a single tank set extra.

#EDIT: Getting into the game now, gonna add the final tanks, and put one in orbit as a giant fuel depot. :>

I finally have a space station / fuel depot. Ladies and gents, I give you the "An Exercise in Absurdity Mk4" in orbit and fully functional as that fuel depot.

:>

#EDIT: Notice how the XL solar panels are dwarfed by the rest of that thing!

Edited July 22, 2013 by Aphox
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[Spatzimaus]

Ladies and gents, I give you the "An Exercise in Absurdity Mk4" in orbit and fully functional as that fuel depot.

Very nice. One thing, though; a fuel depot only really works if things can dock with it. Your part count is so high that docking other vessels is going to be really hard, simply because of the difficulty of control on the approach. Before doing anything else, you should build a small conventional rocket whose top stage is a decent sized fuel tank and some engines, and see if you can dock it to your depot.

[Whackjob]

Absolutely. I believe I can. With the extra parts shed, I get about 10-20 fps at the fuel depot. So docking a smaller craft should only damage that FPS slightly.

#EDIT: At the office now, so it'll have to wait until tonight. Also, I've never docked before, so it's entirely possible I ram it and create a giant debris field. But that would be Fun too. :>

#EDIT2: I have a standard size docking port in triplicate on the nose end, and a Sr. docking port on the rear end. Cross-platform capability!

Edited July 7, 2013 by Whackjob

[bobert577]

I really enjoy everything about KSP and the community and all the videos about it, but I find myself reading and watching about it more than actually playing. Maybe its the lack of friends who play/lack of multiplayer? I wish I would play more, but there are still many frustrating things about the game for me. I should come back when the game isn't in alpha. . .

[Whackjob]

Holy.... my hands are shaking right now.

I have succeeded. I have installed on the AEIA Mk4 a living pod and command center. As you can see, the new purveyor of fuel, power, and snacks, is Jebediah Kerman.

I don't know what to say. This was my first docking attempt. I did not ram it. I didn't have to quicksave. I didn't shatter anything into a thousand potentially lethal pieces. All I have left to do is remove the positioning module and send it into the atmosphere to dispose of it.

I now know how to dock. The possibilities are opening before me. If I can succeed here, what else am I capable of?

Leaving Jebediah alone with the snacks. What could go wrong?

Using RCS to get a safe separation distance.

"Godspeed, Jeb. Try to not get sick off the snacks in the first ten minutes!"

"No need to feel lonely. The whole world is there with you."

"Reckless! The fish and game commission is going to hear about this!"

"So... so... many... wonderful... SNACKS."

Hehe. I'm already considering adding more onto the station, now that I know I can. I think perhaps a six-way hub for the front?

Edited July 22, 2013 by Aphox
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[Aragosnat]

Gratz on your first docking. And back to the other picture. The one with the extra fuel could easily slow it down to gain less altitude as you are pushing more weight up or help you gain it by slowing your behemoths down enough so you're not losing as much fuel do to atmospheric drag. In your case. I'm going with the second option.

[Whackjob]

I'm not sure what you're referring to. If you meant the comparison pictures, those were just thrust / stress testing. I kept the throttles at max the whole time just to see what would shake loose.

Generally, my lift profile is to keep it under 150m/s until 13,000 meters, then angle over to 45 degrees and speed up to under 500m/s, And when I'm about 30km or 40km, then I open the throttles up to get a good apogee for an orbital burn.

[Spatzimaus]

Congratulations on the docking. It's really not difficult once you get the hang of it; the hard part is just building your stations to be docking-friendly. Yours works well for that, since there's nothing in the way of that docking port in the middle. What I've started doing is using radial attachment points and girders to extend a few docking "arms" far out beyond the sides of my stations; makes things a lot easier.

Hehe. I'm already considering adding more onto the station, now that I know I can.

As always, watch the part count; you're quickly approaching the point of diminishing returns. And one thing to remember is that once the new resource system comes in (0.22?) you're going to need a lot more stuff on board your stations: more types of fuel tanks, refinery modules, and so on. This'll ratchet up your part count as well as making launches more difficult. Of course, 0.21 is going to invalidate old saves anyway, so you won't have time to get attached to your current design anyway.

As for what parts are necessary, yes, a few more docking ports could be nice. But I'd look at transit engines first; those Mainsails were necessary for your launch, but now that you're in orbit you should be using more efficient engines, i.e. LV-Ns. Otherwise, you won't be able to get to places like Duna any time soon.

[Spatzimaus]

Generally, my lift profile is to keep it under 150m/s until 13,000 meters, then angle over to 45 degrees and speed up to under 500m/s, And when I'm about 30km or 40km, then I open the throttles up to get a good apogee for an orbital burn.

Like I said before, what you want to do is follow the terminal velocity profile on the way up. See the table on this page for exact values. There are mods that make this a lot easier; the Flight Engineer mod, for instance, has a readout that tells you the terminal velocity at your current altitude, and what percent of that you're currently going. (Obviously, the goal is then to keep that last value as close to 100% as possible.)

By the time you get to 10,000m you should be going almost 300m/s, for instance. Now, these values are for rockets; spaceplanes work a little differently, since the amount of intake air they gain is a function of speed and cruising fuel consumption is less of an issue.

[ASnogarD]

Why does Manley who is pretty well known for being a bit of a expert in things spacey, has a tutorial where he tells you to throttle back between 150 m/s and 200 m/s until you reach 10 000 m where you start your gravity turn... then you throttle up again.

(pretty certain it was Manley , then again I have watched a tonne of tutorials)

[Whackjob]

Couldn't say, ASnogarD, but the wiki article is fairly convincing. I recall now that I saw that graph before, but didn't pay any special attention to it. I hadn't realized it was a listing of the terminal velocities at varying altitudes.

I will have to adjust my planning accordingly. Thanks again, Schpatz!

[Whackjob]

Here's an early look at my next project.

I'm planning on building an intra-solar-system starship. This here is a prototype of the crew module. I'm gonna build this thing Civilization style, module by module, then dock them together in orbit. I'm planning on two crew modules, two RCS modules, four to eight fuel modules, a "command" module for the "bow", one carrier module that has a lander that can carry crew to a surface and also return to orbit, one carrier module that has a rover/skycrane that can return the rover to orbit, two main engine modules that can get the thing moving, one or two solar power modules, and a couple more perhaps at some point. I'm still kicking around ideas.

I hear that large constructions tend to put too much torque on one docking port and they fail. So for mine, as you can see above, each section has seven docking ports per side. I hope that will be sufficient.

This is not a project that I'll be able to do in a day or two or ten. This is probably going to be a month or so. Should be interesting!

Not a single comment. I must've made the whole forum community jaded regarding large constructions hehe.

Edited July 22, 2013 by Aphox
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[Bunsen]

Not a single comment. I must've made the whole forum community jaded regarding large constructions hehe.

Can't speak for the rest, but I'm just jealous of anybody with a computer that can handle those things. I've also heard that multiple docking ports like that are of limited use -- only one of them will actually dock, the others will just be magnet-forced toward each other but fairly free to slip around. I haven't tried this myself, as my old-ass computer gets sluggish long before I find the need to multiply ports like that.

[Whackjob]

That's the part I can't figure out. I have an old laptop with an old processor. It's one of those core-two-duo-quad-extreme things. It's not even an i3. I hear about people having trouble with 300 part machines, and I'm all (????). Heck, I made a 4,000 part thing, and even though the takeoff was a slide show, I still managed to fly it.

[CCKinnison]

Not exactly jaded. Somewhat skeptical if you can create and load such a thing when done. Then jealous.

And eager to see either the final product, or a Kessler Effect picture or two. Possibly both, if you do some quicksaving.

[Whackjob]

Does my track record not show I can manage it? Hehe. I did build this:

... which I put into orbit to function as a fuel depot, at which point it was suggested that it's no good if I can't dock with it...

... at which point I docked with it.

I don't think I'm stretching the realm of plausibility with this frigate I'm building. If I'm doing my mental Kentucky windage correct, then the part count will actually come out lower than that thing in the pictures above.

[CCKinnison]

Yes, but 7-point docking, of a number of modules... I'm not saying you can't. You've accomplished enough already that I'd put money on you. But I still want to see it.

[Aragosnat]

@Whackjob: I think it could be that Unity (think that is what this game uses?) is optimized for 32 bit systems and that the new OS that use 64 bit might not be running the programs as effectively as they should be.. Wish I remembered where I saw what Squad was using. Anyway. Less parts can better in the long run as there will be less mass to push. Regardless there are plenty of designs one can try out You could also think about using the largest docing clamp too for the orange tanks. =^.^=

[Whackjob]

Actually, I'm running Windows 8 Ultimate 64 bit edition. Perhaps it's just the whole windows 8 being more efficient and less processor hungry that helps?

[Spatzimaus]

I've also heard that multiple docking ports like that are of limited use -- only one of them will actually dock, the others will just be magnet-forced toward each other but fairly free to slip around.

While it's true that only one will actually count as "docked", the others will hold together just fine. The more ports you have, the less they'll slip. Most people making large multipart ships have used sets of three, so seven should be more than enough.

That being said, there are a couple things you could to do improve the process if you do find it's having problems holding together. Making the center port be a 2.5m one would help a lot, as it has a higher magnetic bonding strength; plus, it's a bigger target, so docking's a bit easier. Also, I like the FusTek mod (common berthing mechanisms, specifically) which adds a set of four ports (0.625m, 1.25m, 2.5m, 3.75m) that weight a bit more but have considerably more magnetic force. They also look a bit nicer, IMO.

Now, the real problem with building a giant ship for long trips is the sheer amount of fuel it'll require to function. Until we get a resource system for creating fuel on-site (or if you don't use Kethane now), you won't be able to refuel the ship without sending out a large bunker from Kerbin every time. The larger the ship, the less effective that'd be. This is a big part of why my own Grand Tour ship only massed about 55 tons, fully loaded; I had fuel depots all over the place, but it would have caused me fuel issues if I'd gone with my original plan to make a giant ship with detachable landers.

[Whackjob]

...advice...

Ok, now I'm absolutely RARING to go. My workweek "weekend" starts tonight. I can't wait to get started hehe.

#EDIT: Just thought up a branching design for the back 3/4ths section that'll allow me to put the engines on an outside structure. Away from the main axis, so I'll have more stability. And the best part is it'll still work with the module system I'm putting together.

Ok. Tonight's plan. I'm going to build a core segment, where it'll have the 6+1 docking rings on the fore and aft sides (z axis?) but for port startboard top and bottom, I'm going to alter those sides into side docking ports for maneuvering engine clusters. I remapped my action groups to sit on the numpad. Maneuvering thrusters would probably be sufficient with atomic engines, even with a big ship. After all, I don't need to turn *fast*. The actual pushers I might just set up as a giant array of atomics. Fuel will be a concern, but not an insurmountable one, I think. I can always do fuel ferries. And if I decide to finally mod up, there's always kethane plants. I can always unseam the ship from the middle and add another module. Kethane refinery? Why not.

Spent three hours trying to build a "blank" module and positioner plus lifter system. Failed horribly. The actual module is the problem... I want room enough to squirrel components inside of it, but small enough and few enough components that I can use a good number of modules. I want it to be rigid, and compact. I want the docking collar system to keep the whole monstrosity together solid enough to be able to fire that sucker at full thrust.

It's a twelve-dimensional Rubik's cube, and I'm trying to solve it while wearing oven mitts and being graded by a team of harridans.

Edited July 22, 2013 by Aphox
Merged multiposts