[1.2] Real Solar System v12.0 Dec 8

[Captain_Party]

9300 Earth ascent. ~3200 TLI. ~900 LOI. ~2000 DOI and landing. ~1800 ascent. ~800 TEI.

Thanks, oh, when I didn't my LOI with a 2t probe, it only cost 750m/s

[AndreyATGB]

PMed it to you. (Can't distribute it online because it adjusts PlanetFactory orbits, Don't want to get in trouble with the license police. Shhhh)

Perhaps this belongs more in the realism overhaul, but it would be nice if Nathan or someone could talk to Krag so we can publicly distribute a config file for RSS so we can have Saturn and Neptune. I know there was one on reddit (which I'm using) but that's not very easy to find.

[tomrigus]

When are you starting the turn? That's usually a symptom of starting it way too late. Start it when you're at less than 100m/s, which is usually 0.5-1.5km.

Can you post a picture in the VAB with the center of mass and center of lift showing?

I found out that if the engines aren't perfectly symmetrical and in line with center of mass, this happens.

My solution was to put engines ( i was using four) one with the bottom node and then three in symmetry around the centre one instead of four in symmetry with nothing in centre.

Or then lock the gimbals with all but the centre engine.

here it's a photo of it.. conclusions are yours..

[Dante80]

here it's a photo of it.. conclusions are yours..

Looks like the culprits are those R7 strap on boosters. Any wobbling at the radial decoupler together with the engines gimballing would produce the spinning effect you are telling us.

Hm. Two things that I can also see right off the bat is that you don't have any stabilizing fins and your payload "looks" light for the rocket at hand (but its RSS after all, so looks are deceiving). Whats your launch TWR? From the photo it looks too high if you are going 100% throttle.

Also, if all your engines have gimbals, it might make sense to deactivate gimballing on the two boosters, thus leaving the main stage to cope with rotation. Adding some more torque in the first stage might also help.

Edited December 2, 2013 by Dante80

[ferram4]

The way the rocket suddenly narrows right near the payload is probably part of the reason why you can't turn it in the atmosphere; it's adding a lot of drag near the top of the rocket. How many real rockets have you seen where there's a sudden flat area right around the payload?

If the boosters are still attached when the spinning starts, then they're the cause of the issue. If the spinning starts after the boosters are gone, it's probably some connection weirdness in that procedural interstage between the core and the upper stage; what's going on in there?

Finally, is your payload securely struted down? That could flex and cause some of the issues as it tries to right itself.

[metaphor]

I´ve been playing with a system scaled by a factor 10 for some time now. It works fine, the only issue is that figuring out launch windows is a bit tricky.

Phase angles should be the same as in the stock system if the planets' orbits are just scaled up by 10.

Also, Krag just posted a new version of the Planet Factory mod including the source. Maybe there's something useful in there...

[NathanKell]

Ralathon: you're editing a file from my mod (RSS) and it's CC-BY-SA, so posting is fine.

[Sternface]

Just built my heaviest lifter yet. I needed it for a manned trip to Europa, which required a 205 ton payload. Normally I would split that into two, but with Ferram's reinforced joints, why not make it one?

Gross weight came in @ 7,028 tons, with a 76,000 kN first stage 207m in height.

Btw Nathan, I just unlocked the larger stretchy tanks in my career and started using them for the first time. They really make construction so much easier....next I need to unlock the larger interstage fairings.

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Edited December 3, 2013 by Sternface

[jrandom]

Wow! How wobbly was it? Also, I thought I was going mad building the launcher for my six-kerbal three-geosat-carrying payload, was getting worried because it's almost sticking out of the top of the VAB.

[Sternface]

Wow! How wobbly was it? Also, I thought I was going mad building the launcher for my six-kerbal three-geosat-carrying payload, was getting worried because it's almost sticking out of the top of the VAB.

Lol, that monster's entire third stage was outside the VAB. Not wobbly at all...when it didn't explode on start lol..... took a few restarts before it loaded without catastrophic failure.

[Captain_Party]

Anyone got a non-whackjobian 20t to LEO lifter?

[Kimaera026]

Anyone got a non-whackjobian 20t to LEO lifter?

1800t Saturn V-like 3 stage 36t lifter

[Captain_Party]

1800t Saturn V-like 3 stage 36t lifter

That'd be nice, PM me the pics?

[Sternface]

Anyone got a non-whackjobian 20t to LEO lifter?

How is this? Exactly 20 tons to LEO: 691 tons gross. No struts required (with Ferram's joint reinforcement).

Ascent profile: Ap: 250km. Turn: @400m. Final angle: 0. Turn end: 140km.

(Limit acceleration to ~1.5g's before breaking through max Q)

1st stage: Liquid fuel/oxidizer

2nd stage: Liquid fuel/oxidizer

3rd stage: H2/LOX

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Edited December 3, 2013 by Sternface

[Captain_Party]

That'd be great, but I don't use NovaPunch, or AIES or KW fuel tanks, to reduce RAM footprint, for more mods.

[Sternface]

That'd be great, but I don't use NovaPunch, or AIES or KW fuel tanks, to reduce RAM footprint, for more mods.

For sure. I used them to give you an idea of how much fuel each stage had. Stretchy tanks would work better.

[rbray89]

That'd be great, but I don't use NovaPunch, or AIES or KW fuel tanks, to reduce RAM footprint, for more mods.

You can try my active texture compressor. Compresses all textures on load to save lots of ram.

[Thesonicgalaxy]

You can try my active texture compressor. Compresses all textures on load to save lots of ram.

I personally use a different one which decreases the ram by 400MB, would use yours if it did the same or more.

[NathanKell]

rbray: it's very cool, but...as you know it really only makes a difference for TGAs and non-compress-flagged mbms. PNGs and most MBMs are already compressed. Besides, there's not point in cluttering up the parts list with tanks if Stretchies will do everything.

Thesonicgalaxy: what other one? The alpha that AncientGammoner posted had issues, and it was buried in the Dev forum; that's the only other one of which I'm aware. Unless you're thinking of texture _reduction_ packs, which are totally not the same thing at all.

[Thesonicgalaxy]

rbray: it's very cool, but...as you know it really only makes a difference for TGAs and non-compress-flagged mbms. PNGs and most MBMs are already compressed. Besides, there's not point in cluttering up the parts list with tanks if Stretchies will do everything.

Thesonicgalaxy: what other one? The alpha that AncientGammoner posted had issues, and it was buried in the Dev forum; that's the only other one of which I'm aware. Unless you're thinking of texture _reduction_ packs, which are totally not the same thing at all.

I can't quite remember who made it, but it's probably the latter knowing me.

[jrandom]

rbray: it's very cool, but...as you know it really only makes a difference for TGAs and non-compress-flagged mbms. PNGs and most MBMs are already compressed. Besides, there's not point in cluttering up the parts list with tanks if Stretchies will do everything.

Depends on how it's compressing it. A PNG uses lossless compression, so if Active Texture Compressor goes the lossy route you'll save on memory even with PNGs.

[NathanKell]

jrandom: KSP has basically two options for textures in memory: DXT1/5, or RGB/A. That's it. All image files in GameData, no matter what they are (jpg? png? mbm? tga? bmp? whatever) are loaded and converted to bitmap, then either stored (if mbm with no-compress flag, or tga) or compressed (to DXT1 if no alpha channel or DXT5 if alpha channel, if png or normal mbm). What that mod does is also compress the files that weren't automatically compressed (again, to DXT1 or 5, using the same built in Compress() call that KSP calls for pngs etc).

Again, pngs are already compressed by KSP natively; their issue is that there's a bug where mipmaps aren't autogenerated for them like they are for mbms and tgas. The best format for KSP textures remains MBM...

[jrandom]

An now I am enlightened.

[Captain_Party]

It's not about how much RAM I HAVE, I just a) Don't need them with ST and Removing them, I can add MOAR MODZ, like KOSMOS, AIES and Soviet Engines. I think fuel tanks probably take up the most memory in mods....

[metroidman63]

How many of the parts are actually resized at this point in time? I set up a separate installation for this mod and as I'm starting career mode, I have a 2m pod with 1.25m fuel tanks and engines (which are also renamed???). Help please...Gets me thinking that this mod is still a huge WIP but then I see things like replications of Voyager and Cassini and I think I'm just doing something wrong here.