Stranded.

[Stranded]

Hey everyone. New guy here and well I have to say I am hooked. I picked up the demo and managed to get one of the Kerbins stuck in a very elliptical orbit. Of course since he was my first guy in orbit I feel like I owe it to him to send a rescue ship. Took me a long time to build it using the demo only but I have a ship with a couple of extra capsules and the fuel to rescue my guy. Now I just need the spare time to map out the mission. I will of course pick up the full version here soon, but am enjoying the challenge of getting my guy back home.

[Specialist290]

Welcome to the forums!

Rescue missions... we've all been down that road before I'm betting it's Jebediah, isn't it? He's always the one trying to do crazy things like that. Let us know how it goes.

That being said, if you're stuck, feel free to ask questions here on the forums, or to take a look at some of the tutorials (especially the ones I've listed on the Drawing Board).

[Stranded]

Thanks for the welcome. It's actually Ronbo. I am playing the demo version at the moment so my tools are limited, but to me that's part of the challenge. I have a ship that I can get into orbit and I actually placed two extra capsules along with their own boosters alongside the main capsule with my rescuer onboard. My plan is to meet up with Ronbo, get close enough to get him out of his current capsule, and then into one of the spare capsules and then set it up to make a deorbit burn. Then separate the spare capsules and everyone lands happy.

It's amazing how much time it takes just to try some little change and fully test to see if it will even work. But it's rewarding when it does.

[Warpedone]

Sooner or later you're just going to have to accept that every great leap forward for Kerbalkind involves sacrifices... I still have a poor early pioneer in a long orbit out past Eeloo after some botched gravity slingshots. Still, good luck on the rescue mission...

[Stranded]

Well I think Ronbo might just have to take one for the team here. It's an elliptical orbit with the periapsis around 50km and the apoapsis around 12,000km. So with the speed swings it's really tough to time this out. I did get the orbit on the same plane, and I am guessing I could just let them spin around and fiddle with the orbit of my rescue craft long enough but ...

So does anyone know if the demo game save can be pulled into the purchased version or are the versions too far apart now? That might make up my mind to just stop this exercise sooner.

[Cydonian Monk]

I recently pulled the crafts from my demo save into my .22 career-mode save, so I'd say yes. Go for it.

And welcome to the Forums!

[Eric S]

It's an elliptical orbit with the periapsis around 50km and the apoapsis around 12,000km. So with the speed swings it's really tough to time this out.

That's not stranded (yet), though it'll take a ton of patience. With a periapsis at 50km, you're hitting atmosphere, which is going to slowly eat away at that 12000 km apoapsis (but only if you're actively in control of the ship while it is passing near Kerbin), provided you can avoid an encounter with the Mun. How inclined is your apoapsis?

Two possibilities that don't involve trying to rendezvous with the ship.

First, you can just wait it out. Assuming your apoapsis is inclined enough to miss the moon, you could just leave the game running overnight with the parachute deployed. Sooner or later, you'll aerobrake enough to reenter.

Second, you can get out and push. At an apoapsis of 12000 km, it won't take much to lower your periapsis deeper into the atmosphere. EVA a kerbal, turn on his jet pack, move him prograde, and then push the ship in the retrograde direction. It should only take one push, as anything below a 40 km periapsis will degrade much faster, and anything much below 30 km will cause an immediate reentry at the speed you'll be going.

[Warpedone]

Second, you can get out and push.

How much delta V does the jetpack have? could you land on one of the smaller moons from orbit with it and get back?? (presumably there will be asteroids at some point which you can do this on...)

[Eric S]

How much delta V does the jetpack have? could you land on one of the smaller moons from orbit with it and get back?? (presumably there will be asteroids at some point which you can do this on...)

I've heard 500 delta-v mentioned, but I've never tried to confirm that. I've done EVA land and return missions a few times, and I've heard that you can do it on Minmus including the transfer back to LKO, but I've never tried that.

Heck, if nothing else, that should be enough to put the eva'ed kerbals into a free return trajectory and then, after a light bit of aerobraking, circularize back in LKO.

[Stranded]

All good ideas. I am going to keep trying to save Ronbo then. I am still amazed at not only the realism of the program, but how well it's put together. It really makes you think back to the early days of the space program and those guys were calculating this with slide rules. It's just mind boggling when you really think about it, and then try and put something like simple orbit burn into action. I have always been fascinated with space and KSP really nails it. I spent hours the other night designing this rescue craft, and am pretty darn proud that I could get it into a similar orbit with enough fuel to get my guy home if I can get the timing right.

To speak to the physics programmed in the game, I am noticing that with my rescue craft, when it comes back closer to the earth, the apoapsis is being reduced by the close periapsis, but at a different rate than the other guy in just the capsule.

Thanks for all of the suggestions. I will keep at it.

[Sirine]

I like your enthusiasm in the KSP.

I once like you, about few months ago. Just piece of advice, never touch the mod, or add-on, or anything that is not "stock"/"original" until you get really really boring, and got nothing to do.

Then you can start with [Kathane],[Persistent Trails],[Alarm Clock], and finally [Kerbal Engineer Redux]. (By following the sequence).

However, HyperEdit, that is the Ultimate Evil, that you need to avoid at all-cost. It will destroy your dream/enthusiasm in to nothing.

At the end...It is all up to you. This just my personal advice. You have the right not to follow, and play out the way you like.

[Stranded]

I can understand that. But it's funny how I take some of these simulations seriously. For instance I remember once sitting at my computer screen for hours during a cross country flight simulation just to say I did it. I could have easily warped ahead, but didn't want to ruin the experience for myself, boredom and all. In fact when I got my first guy into orbit and had a four day orbit I considered setting the alarm on my phone and letting the simulation run real time. I know it sounds goofy, but I think it's pretty cool. My wife gives me that 'I think I married an insane person' look when I tell her I am thinking about leaving it running full time just because I can. In the end I decided to warp ahead, and of course ran out of fuel just seconds before the de-orbit burn was completed, getting me in this mess. Funny thing is, I can't just leave these two out orbiting at warp speed to catch up with each other since one end of the orbit is so close, the program runs the warp back down to 1x as I get close. Makes it tricky to time when you can't watch it just go around a couple of times at 10000x.

[Bilfr3d]

I know how you feel, but sometimes that automatic 1x drop down can be a good thing, because I had a probe in orbit, hadn't noticed that the peri had fallen below 45km, so when it dropped to 1x, I frantically looked around for what went wrong, and made a quick rescue burn. Ended up getting it in a good circular orbit around 140km.

[FenrirWolf]

I second the get out and push idea. It will be the easiest way to do things short of just sitting in the ship forever until its orbit decays sufficiently to reenter