KSP Weekly

[Guest]

Your rocket will also work as an crumble zone for the pod.

Yeah, I'm not trusting in lithobraking. I'm sure you'll have fun with that.

Without staging it will be hard to reach orbit anyway.

Booster cake best cake.

All things being equal I think the biggest issue will be lack of electricity.

[FlowerChild]

You would not get the light probes early.

Yup, I agree there too. Some nice heavy probe cores unlocked at start representing mechanical guidance systems or what have you would be awesome.

[magnemoe]

Yeah, I'm not trusting in lithobraking. I'm sure you'll have fun with that.

Booster cake best cake.

All things being equal I think the biggest issue will be lack of electricity.

Just did an fast test, you can get the pod in orbit and back safe with the supplied parts if item performance is like in 0.21.

parachute, pod, 11 tanks and an LV-45 can reach 80 km with 280 m/s spare. 20 m/s to deorbit, landing speed with parachute deployed is 12 m/s.

Yes I managed to mess up, wanted to do an powered landing on water and managed to reach positive speed who I think disabled parachute so I crashed somehow however it was dark.

however I know that landing like this is survivable on land.

and yes power is an issue, I used an probe as I did not want to use an poor kerbal. had to add an small batery and it was just enough. without probe and just rotating the rocket with engine first at 40 km attitude and it should be enough.

[Lazro]

Early probe cores should be early on, I agree, along with the basic instruments. Maybe just with engine on/off at the start. It's silly to have the manned capsule first.

[FlowerChild]

Early probe cores should be early on, I agree, along with the basic instruments. Maybe just with engine on/off at the start. It's silly to have the manned capsule first.

Yeah, even if not 100% realistic or what have you, I was kinda hoping that only solid fuel engines would be available at start, which would effectively mean the same thing as the on/off engine you mention above.

At present, there's just not much incentive to use solid fuel rockets in regular play, so I was under the impression they might be an early-game low tech part.

[Eric S]

Just did an fast test, you can get the pod in orbit and back safe with the supplied parts if item performance is like in 0.21.

parachute, pod, 11 tanks and an LV-45 can reach 80 km with 280 m/s spare. 20 m/s to deorbit, landing speed with parachute deployed is 12 m/s.

I suspect that's an LV-30, not an LV-45, as vectored thrust is probably researched. But other than that, I agree completely. I did it with an LV-30 and fewer tanks. Might not have landed safely, but those tanks do work well as a crumple zone. Probably wouldn't have needed to do that, but I accidentally used too much thrust to break, and the chute went poof.

I'll definitely uninstall Chatterer if they don't release the version where you can turn off the battery drain by then, though, I think Chatterer will eat through the Mk-1's battery in about the same amount of time it takes to do one orbit.

[Pulstar]

I think the pod has basic experiments available since that was mentioned in the PAX presentation I believe, dedicated SCIENCE! parts down the road just give you a lot more options. Lack of probes early on is a bit odd. You can probably do experiments while in a suborbital trajectory so don't read too much into the lack of a starting decouplers. Testers would complain about it enough by now if it was an issue.

[bsalis]

Loved the frogs!

Agree with many here - tech tree progression seems odd. Would have thought RL progression from Sputnik/1950s onward would have been a template.

So... KSP is in experimentals now. Since this is a *big* update, i'm calling release date of 24th, no earlier. Mebe 3 weeks. Time will tell.

[allmappedout]

It does appear that a lot of odd choices have been made on the tech tree. I for one am very intruiged to see what the rationale behind it is.

The idea of launching your first probe, Sputnik style though, still won't be much cop without decouplers. Perhaps the screenshot is a deliberate act of misdirection by the devs?

[Crown]

Remember, no decoupler in the first batch[...]

The picture doesn't say there's no decoupler. You only see some rocket parts. There might be some more, but we can see it.

And, of course, it all is subject to change. I still hope for some simple decoupler.

[Katve]

I don't see any logic with starting manned capsule. What is the point?

[Tw1]

I don't see any logic with starting manned capsule. What is the point?

Becuase watching a probe is boring compated to sitting on top of that SRB yourself? Because remote control is hard?

The idea of launching your first probe, Sputnik style though, still won't be much cop without decouplers. Perhaps the screenshot is a deliberate act of misdirection by the devs?

I also hold this theory, but, it depends on how rapidly things can be unlocked.

[Rage097]

I feel I'm too excited about this update. This is probably because it correlates with my obsession with What's up with Minmus. I MUST do SCIENCE on Minmus!

[Chrisd857]

For those curious about what one can do on the parts shown: >100x100km orbit with 3 kerbals, Duna strand-landing with 1 kerbal, 72x72km orbit with 3 kerbals and entirely safe landing, and 4 kerbals safely landed on Mun are thataway.

[Sandworm]

For those curious about what one can do on the parts shown: >100x100km orbit with 3 kerbals, Duna strand-landing with 1 kerbal, 72x72km orbit with 3 kerbals and entirely safe landing, and 4 kerbals safely landed on Mun are thataway.

I hope not. I really hope that Squad doesn't expect us to build rockets like those: massive multipart monsters with no regard to aerodynamics whatsoever. I know that KSP is always going to be more cartoon than simulator, but career mode should at least be possible without relying on trickery (ie stacking one solid booster on top of another without decouplers). Not to mention the fact that none of those landers would ever fit under a proper fairing.

I shall never launch a rocket that is wider than it is tall.

[Eric S]

I also hold this theory, but, it depends on how rapidly things can be unlocked.

That's very much the case. The early science returns are going to come from what the devs mentioned about there being a science return on recovered craft based off of where the craft went, since there are no starting science parts. Still, it's possible that the early techs will be cheap enough that one LKO and return flight may unlock enough to make a trip to the Mun far more viable.

I shall never launch a rocket that is wider than it is tall.

Number of rockets wider than they are tall in that thread: 0 - you're still safe. Well, there is one rocket that went wider than tall during ascent, but it wasn't wider on the launchpad.

My first LKO mission using the starting career parts looked quite traditional, as do many of the craft in that thread. And to be honest, the more reaching designs there weren't supposed to be practical. If your only science return prior to science parts is based on recovering the craft, then a one way trip to Duna using just the initial parts has got to be the stupidest mission ever as far as progressing in the tech tree goes.

[Sandworm]

I didn't mean that they were wider than tall in absolute terms, just that they are so wide that they would be aerodynamically impossible in the real world. The corollary to this is that many of those rockets do have part counts near or above 100, putting them out of reach of many players. An early game requiring deep knowledge of KSP physics, or a powerhouse machine, will put off new players. Imho it needs to be so easy and straitforwards that anyone reading this thread should find little challenge.

[Eric S]

Imho it needs to be so easy and straitforwards that anyone reading this thread should find little challenge.

And it is. A capsule, a parachute, 8 fuel tanks, and one engine will get you to LKO and back. Lack of delta-v and TWR stats in the stock VAB are the biggest hurdles to an experienced player, and inexperienced players tend to fall into the "overcomplicate it till it can't work" category, usually trying to compensate for lack of skill at piloting. I will admit that that craft doesn't have huge amounts of delta-v in reserve, so it would be harder than launching a craft in sandbox mode. As I said, it only gets complicated when you try to go farther.

Even the trip to Duna was done with 47 parts. I won't say it was the most aerodynamic craft ever, but that was mostly due to the lack of decouplers.

Really, the dev's idea is to provide the minimum amount of parts at the start so that new players don't get confused. Ever watched a youtube video of someone introducing someone else to KSP? The amount of time it takes new players to realize that most of the parts aren't appropriate for their first mission is probably enough time for people to decide that this game isn't for them, and if they add more stock parts, this is only going to get worse.

I think that they may have gone slightly too far, but as long as you can unlock decouplers with one successful LKO mission or one or two successful suborbital missions, I don't see this as being much of a speed bump to experienced players, as decouplers are the only thing standing in the way of Munar orbits for most players. I'm also not sure how much good this will really do, as I'm not sure if normal starting players are going to head for sandbox or career mode first, and this does nothing to help sandbox players.

[Specialist290]

Really, the dev's idea is to provide the minimum amount of parts at the start so that new players don't get confused. Ever watched a youtube video of someone introducing someone else to KSP? The amount of time it takes new players to realize that most of the parts aren't appropriate for their first mission is probably enough time for people to decide that this game isn't for them, and if they add more stock parts, this is only going to get worse.

I think that they may have gone slightly too far, but as long as you can unlock decouplers with one successful LKO mission or one or two successful suborbital missions, I don't see this as being much of a speed bump to experienced players, as decouplers are the only thing standing in the way of Munar orbits for most players. I'm also not sure how much good this will really do, as I'm not sure if normal starting players are going to head for sandbox or career mode first, and this does nothing to help sandbox players.

Both of these are good points to consider. Given the parts available, I'm expecting that our first flight is meant to be a fairly modest suborbital hop just to gather some very basic science to start progressing further up the tech tree. I'm also assuming that when actual monetary costs start coming into play later on down the road, they'll start providing much the same sort of limiting function early in the game when we won't be expected to have much cash on hand.

[Eric S]

Given the parts available, I'm expecting that our first flight is meant to be a fairly modest suborbital hop just to gather some very basic science to start progressing further up the tech tree.

Agreed, and having to grind out the lower few tech nodes with multiple suborbital hops really isn't my idea of fun gameplay, which is why I suspect that the first few tiers of tech will go by rather fast. The average player probably won't be doing LKO missions without decouplers.

As for some of the other complaints (starting with a capsule instead of a probe) gets back to gameplay vs reality, and in KSP gameplay wins. Probes do have a higher learning curve because of their power requirements, and let's face it, would this game really be as addictive to new player without the little green man (men) in the corner screaming/laughing maniacally?