Fly on Budget: tutorial on how to find shortcuts and make smaller rockets

[Kulebron]

I made a tutorial on this topic. Most of the texts are done, but I still need to do formatting, images and charts. But the first chapter is already there. See it and tell what you think.

http://flyonbudget.one-giant-leap.info/

Edited February 28, 2015 by Specialist290
URL appears to have been changed

[Specialist290]

I like it. Even with just one chapter (so far), it condenses a lot of useful rocket building advice into one helpful post.

There are a couple of typos you might want to fix, especially one in the very first sentence on the site

I'll certainly be watching this with interest

[Kulebron]

Thanks! Fixed one, and changed a sentence: "any [landing] can can do" is too tricky

[Dispatcher]

Yes, it looks like it will be quite helpful. Thank you for doing this, and good luck on it.

[Col_Jessep]

Nice! I started looking into optimizing some of my ships as well but under a different aspect: I'm building VTOLs that can launch from Kerbin and land on Mün/Minmus without the need to refuel or stage. Just your day to day shuttle to the moons and back. Of course they are a little bit more expensive to build the first time - but after that all you are paying for is fuel. Maybe something worth looking into once you are finished with regular rockets?

[Kulebron]

Do you plan to use them without recovering? I saw a video with an SSTO spaceplane, with plugins. Not sure if I have power to do it. I thought of doing an Eve land/takeoff plane, because it's a very challenging task, but I tested some options, and don't see the solution so far. I'm pretty much exhausted with KSP and this tutorial, and the most rewarding part now is publishing it, and I'll take a break for a while. Even when the screenshots are there, and the texts are written, it takes hours to arrange everything, do many minor corrections and find and put images in place.

[Col_Jessep]

Do you plan to use them without recovering?

Only if it would be financially interesting since it is additional work...

You can refuel a small, Mün-VTOL for as little as $2500-3000 fuel tank cost though. Very hard to beat unless you deorbit every stage and recover it.

[Kulebron]

Added the Mün mission chapter. RSS feed is working now.

[DMagic]

This is very nice. I love seeing these kinds of designs and I think they should be encouraged. I always love it when I can build something that's just as heavy as it needs to be and no more.

I don't know what your plans are for further chapters, but I would definitely suggest some kind of "advanced" section. Engineer and MJ can get flummoxed by more complex designs with docking ports or RCS powered landers. The only real option there is to make at least some of the calculation by hand, which is actually pretty simple as you've noted.

I did this for the next part of my Eeloo mission, which I'll be posting soon, and I'll go over some of the process there. I learned that you can come up with some really great designs by carefully optimizing your crafts in ways that Engineer or MJ can't really help you with. And you can actually make some really good landers with only RCS thrusters (which Eng/MJ will completely ignore), maybe even with a chair, too. Don't discount RCS because of the low ISP values, monopropellant has a lower mass so this isn't as much of issue as you might think.

[Kulebron]

Thanks! RCS lander would be a good idea for Ike, indeed.

[Specialist290]

Nicely done!

There's a few typos and odd wording choices, but overall the information itself is quite solid. If you're interested, I'd like to offer my skills as a proofreader so that I can help you polish the writing up until it shines

[Kulebron]

Yes, please PM me, because I can't find a proper spellchecker in SublimeText, and English in not my native language. Thanks!

[Kerolyov]

Very good stuff. Main suggestion is to add more detail on the lander designs particularly the all in one designs as hard to see all the stages in your designs.

I'd also recommend changing the delta-V map to this one as its much more accurate http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/41652-A-more-accurate-delta-v-map?highlight=delta

and for interplanetary to use http://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/ particularly for planets like Moho which have inclined eccentric orbits as delta-V maps aren't much help in those cases

[Kerbart]

Having launched a duna probe on a single Mk1 Jet fuel fuselage and one FL-T200 tank (to get into orbit; from there it was ion engine all the way) I have to say that I saw an awful lot of orange tanks

[Kulebron]

Kerolyov, that's what I thought of drawing myself! Great map! And I also knew the launch window calculator, a great tool, was going to link it.

[Kulebron]

A new chapter is out. Click the image to read.

[Specialist290]

Nicely done! I like the diagrams you've used to illustrate your points.

EDIT: One thing, though: What you've labeled the "Saturn C" in one of the images is actually (what would eventually become) the Saturn IB.

Edited October 23, 2013 by Specialist290

[tavert]

Those were early names, note the 1962 date. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silverstein_Committee

Saturn C-1 mostly became Saturn I/IB, and Saturn C-5 mostly became Saturn V.

[Specialist290]

I'm aware of that. I'm just noting that technically, there was never such a thing as just a "Saturn C."

[tavert]

Gotcha. It existed on paper at least!

[Kulebron]

Another chapter, the last for this week. How to build and pilot a ship into orbit.

Edited October 24, 2013 by Kulebron

[Specialist290]

As always, nicely done! I've also noticed that your English has been improving considerably since your first chapter.

[Kulebron]

I'm learning from your corrections.

[DMagic]

I'm not so sure about some of your advice for chapter 4. Using RCS to control heading during ascent is, in my opinion, the worst way of doing it. It's not very effective and requires that you carry around a bunch of extra mass in monopropellant and RCS thrusters.

The torque from a command pod and maybe a few inline reaction wheels are usually enough to keep things stable and steer when you're outside of the atmosphere. But I think most of the steering comes from using thrust vectoring engines. The LVT-30s are great for extra booster rockets, but I never use them as the main engine during the first stage (clipping a single LVT-45 in the middle of four LVT-30s works really well though, if it doesn't blow up). Maybe for an upper stage they would be alright, or for a fairly small craft where reaction wheel torque and a few winglets would provide enough control.

Wobbly spacecraft are usually either a sign of not enough struts or poor design. I can see why your specific design might be more well suited to using RCS, but in general I don't think it's a good idea.

[Kulebron]

Two -45 and two -30 in the main stage would probably work, but this adds 500 kg, and reduces thrust (and I run on a blade here ). A small RCS tank, FL-R10, weighs 250, and 4 extra thrusters weigh 200 kg in total, so I won some weight here and kept TWR. Although, if one chooses a more conservative design, the whole RCS deal indeed becomes irrelevant.

The spacecraft had some struts, but was still wobbly, because the heavy command module was far, and between it and the bottom modules there were the tiny tanks. (again, because of weight saving).

I never liked when guys have obsession with light-weight parts for mountain bikes (i ride a stock one), but here I do the same thing.

Edited October 24, 2013 by Kulebron