[Tutorial] Beginner Science

[bigalqld]

Mission 10

For this next mission we are going to try out some unmanned probes. We are also going to make use of the gravity sensor. This sensor will give us heaps of science as it is biome specific when used in space near, and it is also biome specific when used in space high above. To make things more interesting we are going to mount two probes per rocket. One to measure the gravity of space near, and one to measure the gravity of space high above. If you have enough science we will also make sure we don’t leave any debris, but this step is optional and won’t give you any more science.

This mission can be run 3 times, once for Kerbin, once for the Mun, and once for Minmus. The Kerbin mission doesn’t give you as much science, but it does let you try out what happens with multiple probes on a single rocket.

If you haven’t done so already please unlock “Advanced Science Techâ€Â, This will give us access to the gravity sensor and “Unmanned Tech†to get access to more probe cores.

Optional: Unlock “Advanced Unmanned Tech†if you want to clean up the debris as well.

Required Tech:

We will start by making the probe, as an assembly.

Start with a TR-18A Stack decoupler

Add a FL-T100 fuel tank to the top

Add a Z-200 battery to the top

Add a Probe core to the top, any of the inline ones will do (not Stayputnik). I like the 3 sided geometry of the Probodyne HECS. Turn it 90 degrees so that the flat side is facing forward.

Add a Mk16 parachute to the top.

Turn on 6 way symmetry

Add 12 GRAVMAX sensors to the top of the fuel tank. Yes I did say 12 as this sensor is biome specific.

Turn on 3 way symmetry

Add 3 OX-STAT solar panels to the front of the probe core.

Add 3 LT-5 Micro landing struts to the front of the fuel tank.

Turn on 2 way symmetry

Add 2 Rockomax 24-77 to the side of the fuel tank

Take the hole assembly from the decoupler and put in in the sub assembly section. I've called mine "M10 Gravity Probe"

The arrow is pointing from the front of the probe core. You can tell the front because it has the number 5 on it.

Create a new design

Start with a RC-001S if you want to clean up your debris,

Add an inline reaction wheel to the bottom.

Add a Z-100 battery to the front.

Start with an Inline reaction wheel if you don’t care about the debris.

Add a TVR-200 Stack Bi-coupler to the top, it should be upside-down

Add the M10 Gravity Probe assembly to the top, both locations. Make sure you rotate them is such a way that they don’t overlap. That would be a bad thing when we go to separate one of the probes.

Add a TVR-1180C Stack tri-coupler to the bottom

Turn on 3 way symmetry

Add a FL-T400 to the bottom

Add a LV-909 to the bottom

Add a TT-70 stack decoupler to the outside edge of the fuel tank

Add the M8 Liquid Booster to the decoupler.

Add a fuel duct from the middle booster to the FL-T400 fuel tank

Add a EAS-4 Strut to the middle booster

The staging should be

Stage 0 Parachutes on both the probes

Stage 1 Decoupler and engines on the left probe

Stage 2 Decoupler and engines on the right probe

Stage 3 TT-70 Decouplers

Stage 4 TT-38K Decouplers, LV-909 Engines, Middle LV-T30 Engines

Stage 5 Outer LV-T30 Liquid engines on the sub assembly. (6 Engines in Total)

If you want to add any parachutes to the top of the M8 liquid booster, feel free. They aren’t exactly required for this mission and leaving them off makes the staging lines a lot less complicated.

Select your chosen Kerbal and click the launch button.

Look at the naviball, is east actually east or are you controlling the rocket from the probe facing the other direction. Right click on the probe and click “Control from here†to change which probe you are flying the rocket from. If you are controlling the rocket from the wrong probe then your control inputs will be backwards. Eg press right to go left, and that can get confusing very quickly. If all goes pear shaped it doesn’t really matter as there are no Kerbals on board. Probe cores don’t have families to go home to … yet.

Press T to enable SAS

Hold shift until the throttle is at maximum

Press the space bar to launch

The fuel for the outer boosters will run out at 11.8km, press the spare bar to separate

Turn 45 degrees to the east when you reach an altitude of 30km.

Change to the orbital map and wait until your Ap is 150km. Then press X to cut your engines.

Set the node so that your Pe is 120 to 150km.

Change back to craft view. This time you want to start the burn when the time to node is equal to the burn time. Your next stage will run out part way though this orbital burn, so the estimated time will be less than the time it will actually take to perform the burn. Press the Space bar when the outer stage runs out of fuel.

For the Mun / Minmus mission, get into orbit of your chosen moon. You should already know how to do this from mission 8 and mission 9.

• Align your orbit

• Get an encounter

• Adjust the encounter to 100km (50km to 250km)

• Perform a retrograde burn at the Pe, and your in orbit.

(438 fuel Low Kerbin Orbit)

(204 fuel High Mun Orbit)

(189 fuel High Minmus Orbit)

Now that you are in orbit (Low Kerbin / High Mun / High Minmus) you can separate the first probe. Press the spacebar. Depending on which probe you were controlling the craft from either the probe moved away (desired), or the rocket moved away (not desired). If you are now controlling the probe and not the rocket, please switch back to the rocket. We still need to get the next probe into its desired orbit. Right click on the rocket from the orbital map and click “Switch toâ€Â.

Wait for the probe to move away a little as you don’t want to crash into it.

Then setup a node to adjust your orbit. (High >250km for Kerbin, Low <50km for Mun, Low < 30km for Minmus) Burn when the time is right, please don’t crash into the separated probe!

Circularize your orbit at the new altitude.

Now you can separate your second probe. Press the spacebar. Please be aware that if you did not fit the “RC-001S†then you will lose control of the rocket as soon as you separate the probe. Thus leaving the rocket as debris.

If you have the “RC-001S†fitted please change back to the rocket. Perform a retrograde burn to crash what is left of the rocket into Kerbin / Mun / Minmus. Whatever it is you are orbiting. This rocket is running on battery power only, so you do not have alot of time to return it safely to Kerbin from either of the moons. Unlike when using capsule, probe cores constantly draw power. Please don’t crash into the separated probe! Its up to you if you ride to rocket down to destruction, or "switch to" one of your probes and start gathering science.

Please select one of your gravity probes and start taking gravity measurements. You have 12 sensors per probe and plenty of biomes to fly over. It is entirely up to you if you want to repeat readings for a single biome. There isn’t much point doing more than 2 readings per biome as you can see from the science gain below. If you want to save one for when you land on Kerbin that’s up to you.

Kerbin 20, 1.8, 0.2

Mun 60, 5.5, 0.5

Minmus 80, 7.3, 0.7

Kerbin (Surface) 8, 0.7, 0.1

If you want to adjust your orbit to fly over more biomes please keep some fuel in the tank to get back home. You will need about 5 to get home from Kerbin orbit, 15 to get home from the Mun orbit, 20 to get home from Minmus orbit. When setting up your nodes be aware that You will get about 270 delta V per 10 units of fuel.

Once you have collected enough gravity readings fly you probe back to Kerbin.

• Burn in the Kerbin retrograde, aim for under 250km

• Adjust for aerobreak (30km to 40km)

• Land safely

You can switch over to the other gravity probe whenever you are ready to get another set of gravity readings. I normally switch once the first probe is on its way back to Kerbin. Then watch the first probe and switch back when it gets below 500km as I don't want the probe to aerobreak without me.

Near Kerbin Probe

+20 Science, 1st Gravity reading from space near “biome†of Kerbin

+1.8 Science, 2nd Gravity reading from space near “biome†of Kerbin

+0.2 Science, 3rd Gravity reading from space near “biome†of Kerbin

+8.0 Science, 1st Gravity reading from surface “biome†of Kerbin

+0.7 Science, 2nd Gravity reading from surface “biome†of Kerbin

High Kerbin Probe

+20 Science, 1st Gravity reading from space high above “biome†of Kerbin

+1.8 Science, 2nd Gravity reading from space high above “biome†of Kerbin

+0.2 Science, 3rd Gravity reading from space high above “biome†of Kerbin

+8.0 Science, 1st Gravity reading from surface “biome†of Kerbin

+0.7 Science, 2nd Gravity reading from surface “biome†of Kerbin

Near Mun Probe

+60 Science, 1st Gravity reading from space near “biome†of Mun

+5.5 Science, 2nd Gravity reading from space near “biome†of Mun

+0.5 Science, 3rd Gravity reading from space near “biome†of Mun

+? Sciecne, Recovery of a craft from orbit around the Mun

High Mun Probe

+60 Science, 1st Gravity reading from space high above “biome†of Mun

+5.5 Science, 2nd Gravity reading from space high above “biome†of Mun

+0.5 Science, 3rd Gravity reading from space high above “biome†of Mun

+? Sciecne, Recovery of a craft from orbit around the Mun

Near Minmus Probe

+80 Science, 1st Gravity reading from space near “biome†of Minmus

+7.3 Science, 2nd Gravity reading from space near “biome†of Minmus

+0.7 Science, 3rd Gravity reading from space near “biome†of Minmus

+20 Sciecne, Recovery of a craft from orbit around Minmus

High Minmus Probe

+80 Science, 1st Gravity reading from space high above “biome†of Minmus

+7.3 Science, 2nd Gravity reading from space high above “biome†of Minmus

+0.7 Science, 3rd Gravity reading from space high above “biome†of Minmus

+3.3 Sciecne, Recovery of a craft from orbit around Minmus

Edited January 28, 2014 by bigalqld
Add Tech Tree

[Captain Sierra]

Just a thought, could you elaborate some on the tech tree paths you have to do for some of these missions? I know the gravioli sensor is pretty late in the tech tree, but I can't remember the path to get that (since Squad thought it was a good idea to hide the tech tree ).

[bigalqld]

I've added the required tech for each mission in red. And the optional / bonus tech in blue.

Yes, the gravity sensor is in the last row of the tech tree.

Advanced Electrics -> Electronics -> Advanced Science Tech

or

Advanced Exploration -> Field Science -> Advanced Science Tech

or

Landing -> Field Science -> Advanced Science Tech

[SRV Ron]

A sample first two missions in Career;

In Career Mode, your objective is to build rockets with the limited resources you have available and conduct missions to earn Science Points. With those Science Points, you can then spend them to unlock better parts which will allow you to build better rockets for earning more Science Points. Those Science Points are used to unlock your Tech Tree which will allow you some flexibility of where to spend your Science Points to further your space program.

Tier Zero starts you out with some very basic parts. Because the decoupler has not been invented yet, you will be very limited on what you can build to land safely. Therefore, I recommend the following mission, Place a MK-1 Command Pod on the launch pad.

With only the command pod on the launch pad, do the following;

1. Conduct a Crew Report.

2. EVA Jeb and do an EVA report.

3. Take a soil sample on the launch pad.

4. Return to the capsule and enter it.

5. Recover the capsule.

Now, go to the Research Lab and spend some Science Points to unlock Tier one parts. This will give you a decoupler to separate the capsule from the spent rocket, Goo canasters for some simple research, and a bigger fuel tank.

Your second mission; build a suborbital rocket;

Using the MK-1 capsule, add the following;

1. Place a parachute on the top

2. Using symmetry mode, place 2 Goo canisters on the side of the capsule. Be sure that the crew hatch is clear or Jeb won't be able to exit to do an EVA.

3. Place a decoupler under the capsule.

4. Place a stack of three FL-T400 fuel cans under the decoupler

5. place the LV-30 engine under that.

Do the mission as follows;

1. Press T to activate automatic stabilization for launch.

2. Hold the shift key down until the throttle indicator reads full.

3. When ready, press the Space key to launch.

4. Start a sub orbital turn at about 10,000 meters by pressing the D key and releasing it several times. It may help to press the F key to temporary turn off stabilization while making the turn. Practice will prefect what would be called a Gravity Turn.

5. If you find that the G meter is getting out of the green throttle back with the Ctrl key until it comes back. Too much acceleration in the lower atmosphere causes excessive drag and waste fuel.

6. Stage the rocket when it runs out of fuel and shuts down.

7. Now, activate one of the Goo canisters and save the report.

8. When you are in space, you will hear the music playing, do a Crew Report, activate and save the data on the second Goo canister, do an EVA but don't let go, do an EVA report, and return to the capsule.

9. Turn off the stabilization by pressing the T key before reentering the atmosphere. The capsule will stabilize bottom down for reentry.

10. When reentry heating and shock wave effect has completed and your speed has dropped below 500m/sec, hit the spacebar to deploy the parachute. It will deploy into drogue mode, then at 500 meters from the surface, deploy fully.

11. When you land, either in the water or on land, do an EVA, take a soil sample, and return to the capsule. If you are unable to reenter, don't worry.

12. Recover the capsule or Jeb.

13. If the capsule couldn't be recovered because Jeb was outside, go to the Flight Center and recover the capsule from there.

Go to the Research center with the 50 Science Points you have just earned and unlock all the Tier 2 parts. You can now build a multistage rocket to place you into orbit, go to Mun or Minmus, return, and get enough Science Points to start unlocking Tier 3 Parts. Do multiple missions in different biomes of those three places to unlock a ton of Science Points.

[Captain Sierra]

I've added the required tech for each mission in red. And the optional / bonus tech in blue.

Yes, the gravity sensor is in the last row of the tech tree.

Advanced Electrics -> Electronics -> Advanced Science Tech

or

Advanced Exploration -> Field Science -> Advanced Science Tech

or

Landing -> Field Science -> Advanced Science Tech

Big thanks on that.

[EtherDragon]

I've added the required tech for each mission in red. And the optional / bonus tech in blue.

Yes, the gravity sensor is in the last row of the tech tree.

Advanced Electrics -> Electronics -> Advanced Science Tech

or

Advanced Exploration -> Field Science -> Advanced Science Tech

or

Landing -> Field Science -> Advanced Science Tech

The Required Tech is a really nice touch.

[Arctodus]

Wow, this thread is ace! I'm just starting out, so I was looking for a bit of a helping hand, and this has more than delivered.

*bookmarks*

Thanks, man

[Justin Kerbice]

@bigalqld: thanks a lot for your reply, appreciated.

I take time to conduct some experiments without getting usefull results. Starting from a clean install of KSP, it seems to be ok. I have use mission6 rocket and an even more big and quite less stable wihtout any trouble. I should call Fox Mulkerbder to investigate on this case .

And, parachutes on "debris" (in fact anything you don't control) are useless as the game ignore the deploy altitude. Two heroics kerbals died in this experiment sadely (one of a pod should have land on water with deploy alt. set to 1500m but the pod has vanished).

[bigalqld]

For the current version of KSP, yes parachutes on "debris" are only for aesthetic purposes. They actually slightly harm the performance of the rocket by adding more weight and drag. However, if the craft you are controlling stays within 2.4km of the "debris" then the parachutes will still semi-deploy and fully-deploy at the correct altitude, then come in to land safely. I've run a few tests just to be sure using the Mission 3 craft.

The general rule that I've seen somewhere is "If the debris is in the atmosphere and is not within 2.4km of the craft you are controlling, then it will be automatically deleted." I haven't done any tests to be able to tell you what altitude is considered "in atmosphere". It would be logical if this is the same height where you transition from flying to upper atmosphere. That would ensure that craft switching during an aerobreak doesn't cause the craft to be deleted. It may also explain why you can't switch craft during atmospheric flight.

I have this idea that in the future this distance of 2.4km will be increased to something much larger. I expect this will happen when you need to start paying for the rocket parts. This will allow you to "recover" some of the cost when you safely land the spent boosters. (This idea is just that, Squad have NOT endorsed or hinted to it in any way, shape or form.)

[kBob]

While I was already in career mode when I found this and decided to keep going on my own I've found it full of useful advice and tips and it helped me pick up some science I'd missed. Great work! You seem to have a talent for tutorials, when you're done hopefully this will go on the Wiki.

[Justin Kerbice]

thanks for the info bigalqld, IMHO, I think it will be even better if parachutes or other self-managing-part just do their assigned job wherever they are and unless you do launch after launch after launch all the day long, there will be not so much debris to managed or they can implement the "max permanent debris" config item (it doesn't appear in config file for now).

I have some kind of "gift" for you: a buggy rocket which have a completely random behavior (like MS windows ) and most of the time, it ends in a very expensive firework. I notice that when big boosters are close to run out of fuel, they move up to hit the other part of the rocket !

Note: no mod installed at all.

Note2: I don't think it's a smart/good/efficient/amazing design

EDIT: I believe the joint weakness (the lonely decoupler) can cause this. This is a unity bug (seen in another post)

the ship

To end, if you are interested this is a video on youtube showing boosters recovery by NASA boat, just amazing !

Edited February 6, 2014 by Justin Kerbice
additionnal info

[Cheezfriend]

This is an excellent guide, it's more than a beginner's guide to science, its a run down on how to play career mode and unlock the tech tree quickly and efficiently

Edited February 12, 2014 by Cheezfriend

[Tordan69]

Just wanted to add my thanks for this guide. I frequently run out of fuel, but staying with your designs means that I have to work at better piloting and navigational skills instead of going the easy route and just add moar boosterz.

[Arctodus]

Hey man I've been using your guide to help me along cause I've finally started playing.

I'm having a problem with the mission 4 setup: I have everything recommended, but my rocket will just not gain altitude beyond 54km. Even before the second rocket has run out of fuel, I have started to descend. This is while it's still boosting.

Didn't have the problem with the mission 2 and 3 setup though, that was almost perfect to what you said it'd be, it was great. If you have any ideas that'd be ace?

Thanks again!

Edited March 17, 2014 by Arctodus

[Dispatcher]

Very nice work! I've already done career mode once but its fun to see anyway.

[Nepos]

Good tutorial

[HeadHunter67]

Thanks for this great tutorial series. I hope to see it continue!

[ArmchairGravy]

Very nice tutorial. Could you add a section on how to use the science lab? One thing people don't get about the lab is how to recover results and store them so the experiments can be cleaned and re-used. Also the fact that the lab can be used to store duplicate results which allows for one-stop gathering of all available science.

[Kerbless]

I want to give my own kudos to the bigalqld and a very big thank you!

I'm a bit lucky because I only just started playing KSP and after having a lot of fun figuring out stuff for myself, I discovered this tutorial. I didn't realize how much Science I was missing in the game until I found this.

The game needs a lot more documentation for first time users, and this will be the place I send all of my friends who are getting started.

bigalqld my hats off to you!

[Kerbless]

BTW, I ran into the problem some one else did about rockets suddenly going out of control and turning sideways. No amount of control would keep the ship flying straight.

In my case it turned out only one of the fuel lines was installed on my ship. Probably forgot to turn on symmetry. This one engine ran out of fuel too soon and sudden departure from controlled flight occurs.

Hope this helps anyone reading this and experience the same problem.

[Kevin Kyle]

Thank you for this wonderful tutorial. This should be a sticky so new people dont miss it. I am actually doing things now thanks to the great start I got doing this tutorial.

[Kerbayashi Maru]

This tutorial helped me so much when I was starting out. Thank you for taking the time to do this, it was greatly appreciated!

[PixelClef]

A worthy tutorial. Nearly filled out my tech tree with it!