Ninety-Three Posted July 12, 2013 Author Share Posted July 12, 2013 (edited) Is the RCS block there just to give the craft a mass, to avoid dividing by zero on launch?Struts aren't "nearly" weightless, they are not physically significant. That means no mass, no drag, no getting burned by exhaust gases, etc.It really is just decoration. In the early designs I had a few theories on it being helpful, but they fell through. I kept it around because I thought it looked nice. The ship launches the same if you use a much lighter solar panel, or no decoration at all. F = ma tells me it's inheriting 0.0508 t from somewhere, and I'm not sure where. Current theories include a hardcoded amount of mass added to all ships, and "Weightlessness is glitching it hard, and the speed it spits out just happens to be very close to a nice round number", but that theory's a bit weak because I've observed that my maximum speed scales very linearly with decoupler count. Edited July 12, 2013 by Ninety-Three Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commander Zoom Posted July 12, 2013 Share Posted July 12, 2013 (edited) But Plaid isn't just shooting off into space.Plaid has a destination.And that's where I lost it.I am this close to falling out of my chair with laughter.Bravo. Edited July 12, 2013 by Commander Zoom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
numerobis Posted July 12, 2013 Share Posted July 12, 2013 It really is just decoration. In the early designs I had a few theories on it being helpful, but they fell through. I kept it around because I thought it looked nice. The ship launches the same if you use a much lighter solar panel, or no decoration at all. F = ma tells me it's inheriting 0.0508 t from somewhere, and I'm not sure where. Current theories include a hardcoded amount of mass added to all ships, and "Weightlessness is glitching it hard, and the speed it spits out just happens to be very close to a nice round number", but that theory's a bit weak because I've observed that my maximum speed scales very linearly with decoupler count.0.05t is very close to the mass of an RCS block... But indeed, it wouldn't be too surprising if there were a minimum mass, just to avoid dividing by zero (or, just a check against dividing by zero that happened to end up with the result you see). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ninety-Three Posted July 12, 2013 Author Share Posted July 12, 2013 0.05t is very close to the mass of an RCS block...Like I said, the ship launches the same regardless of which, if any decoration you use. The ten times lighter solar panel and nothing also yield 0.0508 t. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goldham Posted July 12, 2013 Share Posted July 12, 2013 now send it to Duna Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kogut Posted July 13, 2013 Share Posted July 13, 2013 I read your explanation of how you have to hit escape...But I downloaded your plaid.craft, and when I hit launch, I get that lag spike, and then suddenly, it just explodes. on the launch pad.Advice? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justchad Posted July 13, 2013 Share Posted July 13, 2013 I read your explanation of how you have to hit escape...But I downloaded your plaid.craft, and when I hit launch, I get that lag spike, and then suddenly, it just explodes. on the launch pad.Advice?after you send it to launch pad walk away and come back in 10 mins, give it time to load 100% Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stelith61 Posted July 13, 2013 Share Posted July 13, 2013 (edited) Have you tried pointing it at anything else? Like, Jool? Duna? Moho? The sun?I'm sure hitting the sun at large fractions of c would be great for important science things. Edited July 13, 2013 by Stelith61 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Specula Posted July 13, 2013 Share Posted July 13, 2013 Have you tried pointing it at anything else? Like, Jool? Duna? Moho? The sun?I'm sure hitting the sun at large fractions of c would be great for important science things.It would, but being able to do this manually is extremely difficult. It flies in a purely straight line and it's trajectory can only be changed by impacts or the gravity well of a black hole. Actually perfectly lining up to hit something by predicting it's orbit and launching when Kerbin is facing the exact right direction is going to be very, very hard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trobby888 Posted July 13, 2013 Share Posted July 13, 2013 (edited) Press space, and then immediately (during the three second, 1 frame lag spike) press escape. After the decoupler lag abates, you should end up looking at Plaid 1 frame above Kerbin with the game paused. Unpause and follow it out. For a few moments, KSP may refuse to show accurate numbers, but it'll get there quickly. Also, you may have to try the launch a second time, every now and then in testing Plaid would experience some problem and not exhibit the behaviour I documented here.I tried that just now.. But it makes virtually no difference to what I would've got without pausing the game. All pausing does stops me at the screen where I see some sort of explosion. After that, it's just the same old accelerate 100ms-2 as of what I said in my earlier post. Tried this multiple times and still the same results.I also tried to wait for some time in my last attempt. But the velocity seems to be just doing that accelerate 100ms-2 forever. It's gone past 1 million and is still going at the moment... Edited July 13, 2013 by Trobby888 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ninety-Three Posted July 13, 2013 Author Share Posted July 13, 2013 By popular request, I've taken Plaid on a new journey.Yeah, we're going into the sun.Hurray! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ninety-Three Posted July 13, 2013 Author Share Posted July 13, 2013 To the people having trouble launching Plaid, it occasionally fails to launch correctly when I run it. There doesn't seem to be any technique, the game just isn't too fond of sixty million Gs, I suggest simply giving it another try, it works more often than not (though a warning, decoupler stacking is not fond of the "Restart Flight" button, so you should go back to the Space Center first).I will mention that pressing escape isn't a necessary part of the launch, it just helps you get the re-entry screenshots. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigyihsuan Posted July 15, 2013 Share Posted July 15, 2013 I am laughing my butt off right now, any more stack separators and you'll get to Jool within a few minutes! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KSK Posted July 18, 2013 Share Posted July 18, 2013 0.05t is very close to the mass of an RCS block... But indeed, it wouldn't be too surprising if there were a minimum mass, just to avoid dividing by zero (or, just a check against dividing by zero that happened to end up with the result you see).RCS block plus relativistic mass increase? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werwolf Posted July 19, 2013 Share Posted July 19, 2013 This is incredible...mind = blown. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mahmoud Kermadinejad Posted July 20, 2013 Share Posted July 20, 2013 Plaid needs to become the name of the next planet added. It just has to be that way, it's the least we could do for this amazing piece of "UP YOURS, PHYSICS" technology. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stun_gravy Posted July 30, 2013 Share Posted July 30, 2013 Expanding on your technique I figured out how to launch kerbals into space too. I'm planning on explaining in a YouTube video soon.In case you cant read that, that is 6,130,561.6 meters per second, or approximately 2% the speed of light. Our speed is really only limited by our computer's ability to process a ridiculous amount of decouplers.I'm trying to figure out something cool to do though, launching kerbals and struts into deep space is fine and all, but I feel like I need some crazy goal besides speed alone. There are a few ways I can influence exactly where the kerbal is launched. Just sending kerbals to their speedy doom on celestial bodies seems mean spirited though. Any ideas? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lazro Posted August 3, 2013 Share Posted August 3, 2013 This is all getting a little jules-verne-esque, don't you think? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iDan122 Posted September 13, 2013 Share Posted September 13, 2013 My jaw is literally on the floor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
allmappedout Posted October 12, 2013 Share Posted October 12, 2013 You could always try flying this somewhere with a launch vehicle and using it as a return vehicle, Eve being the obvious candidate.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tassyr Posted October 22, 2013 Share Posted October 22, 2013 I... wha... ow... This hurts my brain. I just. Huh. Physics is somewhere in a corner, curled into a ball, rocking and weeping.... imagine if we had player-made craters. I bet you could crack a planet with this thing. If you could aim. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vetrox Posted October 22, 2013 Share Posted October 22, 2013 Is there a minimum amount of decouplers. I.E do you have to use 300 to smash into the mun in 13seconds.Could you use 150 and do it in a minute? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DMagic Posted October 22, 2013 Share Posted October 22, 2013 I wonder if there is an upper limit to how effective this can be. I think we might need a 1000 decoupler mission. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tassyr Posted October 22, 2013 Share Posted October 22, 2013 I wonder if there is an upper limit to how effective this can be. I think we might need a 1000 decoupler mission.Now THAT'S Kerbal thinking! Tell us if it works! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ninety-Three Posted October 23, 2013 Author Share Posted October 23, 2013 Is there a minimum amount of decouplers. I.E do you have to use 300 to smash into the mun in 13seconds.Could you use 150 and do it in a minute?I wonder if there is an upper limit to how effective this can be. I think we might need a 1000 decoupler mission.Plaid goes so fast that it blows through Kerbin's atmosphere in a single frame. At this point, changing the decoupler count produces a corresponding linear change in speed. The only thing stopping you from exceeding the speed of light is your computer's ability to render the decouplers.... imagine if we had player-made craters. I bet you could crack a planet with this thing. If you could aim.Putting aside the physics of whether Plaid would burrow or explode, it's not actually that bad. Theoretically Plaid should be massless, but F = ma gives us 0.00508 t. I have no idea where that comes from, as it's not strut count or the RCS flair block. Using this mass, Plaid impacts the Mun with 1.86 * 10^12 J of kinetic energy, or 450 tons of TNT.That said, you can (say, to Duna), which will have significantly more mass. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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