Mod Virgin - Career playing with "Better Than Starting Manned"

[Dave Kerbin]

Just a note, I am coming up on my goal of reaching Eeloo. Once that happens I'll be starting a fresh BTSM file to see how things go with the changes that have been made and how things pay out now that I know some information. I'm looking for input on two things. One is a theme or list of names for ships, ideally alphabetical so that they sort correctly. The other is a specific goal. I don't think I'll be going this far on my second run - I really want to see what I can do during the initial hard engineering section, before it becomes a matter of building mega ships like I have been.

Some possible goals are:

Land a probe on another planet. Pretty straight forward but maybe not hard enough. Maybe make it harder and more interesting, like landing a probe on Laythe on land.

Complete all of tech level 7. Somewhat plain, and it doesn't really open up an creative solutions to reach for that goal.

Send and return a manned expedition to a body outside of Kerbin's SOI. Could bring up some creative ways to mount such an expedition with the lowest tech possible.

When I do start that career I'll also post up the list of kerbonaut's available for hire in that new file and make it a public poll to pick 3 of them as my prime crew (they will Jeb, Bob and Bill who I will delete as always). A side goal will be to not hire any other kerbonaut's unless I really need to, which means keeping them alive (rememeber that going to the Mun the first time all but needed 3 crew members to work)

[SabreRedleg]

I've really enjoyed this thread. The detailed explanations of your missions and thought processes has been both entertaining and highly instructive to a KSP & BTSM newbie like me. I just started a couple of weeks ago and while there are a few changes I don't think you'll find the early game significantly different. FC did mention today though that he was getting ready to rewirk the beginnin of the tech tree again...

Some ideas for a new career:

Time Limit: bootstrap a space program capable of redirecting an asteroid on a collision course within XXX days.

Terraforming: Redirect XXX tons of asteroids into a collision with Duna (pretend they're comets).

Shuttle service: Develop a craft capable of reaching [some target] and returning with 100% reusable dry mass.

Mars 1: Kerbals don't like to travel alone. Interplanetary manned missions must carry a crew of 6. Land and return a crew from Duna.

For alphabetic naming conventions, any sufficiently large set of something should be suitable. Flowers, fish, birds, US states, state capitols, major rivers of the world, superheroes, etc. I assume you want to keep it alphabetic to make sorting easier, otherwise some other sets that would be easy to remember might be something like presidents in chronological order or elements by atomic weight.

[babale]

First off, love your reports! You inspired me first to play BTSM and then to make my own mission report. Unlike yours, mine is focusing on the endgame -- it starts with the purchase of the last tier 8 tech and will go until I colonize every body in Kerbin (BTSM's endgame is fascinating to me...). In any case, suggestions:

For a challenge, how about a solid booster only career? At least, no liquid engines in the atmosphere could be cool. Manned missions with SRB.... or a spaceplane focused career?

As for names -- how about flying things? Birds, insects, bats, pterodactyls...

[Dat_Spacewaffle]

maybe do a grand tour?

[Dave Kerbin]

I think Eeloo is coming soon. This is a big ship so I actually did an unmanned test launch into orbit where staging, fuel lines and mass (for double checking delta-v figures) could be verified. The only thing I'm not happy about is the first stage booster which has gotten ugly. It's not a pancake yet but it's edging really close. Unfortunately I need a certain amount of thrust leading to a minimum number of engines (it's a lot). I don't want to spoil much so I've obscured the upper portion. The orbital jumble of rockets is from staging without actually burning any fuel, the rest of the ship is less then 50m away split into 4 pieces, staged as far as the Kerbin SOI reentry (from there the staging has already been well tested with Ham and Kiwi).

One way to try and streamline it was to build it out and create a pair of super-boosters attached to the side though I'd really need to abuse the new joints to prevent it from tearing apart the ship on launch. However even the smallest viable super booster had too large a footprint because of the engine count requirement - even the single launch design has the edge of an engine peaking out over the front and back edges of the launch pad. The smaller super booster design (which isn't much of an improvement in terms of looks) has 3 engines right over the right edge (the model rigged up was not structurally sound for a launch, it was only for size checking). The proper sized super booster would have 9 more engines, pushing it well past the edges of the launchpad.

My one defense over the huge cost of this test launch just to check mass in orbit (I don't use Kerbal Engineer or other information mods so sometimes figures need to be double checked the hard way) is that I am getting economy of scale - most of the ship is composed of the same Nosecone+X64+X32+Mainsail assembly.

[babale]

That is quite the lifter how many tons does it carry?

[Dave Kerbin]

That is quite the lifter how many tons does it carry?

The payload is about 618 tons into a 100km orbit with a little fuel left over (not enough for anything serious, maybe shave any rough edges off the orbit). Pad weight is just over 5000 tons, and it consumes just over 5000 L of liquid fuel and oxidizer per second when launched.

[babale]

That's insane! I think I'll use a similar design in my game -- 680 tons to orbit is enough to put bases on the Mun and Minmus in one launch.

[HeadHunter67]

I've been enjoying catching up on this thread - started BTSM fairly recently (around 1.53) and I'm about halfway through Tier 4. At a couple points, I was kind of hitting a wall when it came to advancement. I knew it was possible, but needed some inspiration and ideas to overcome the obstacles. I'm finally at the point where I think I'm ready to put a manned craft into orbit around Kerbin, and from there I can consider Mün flybys and other missions.

I've watched a few BTSM video series on YouTube, but most of them are either outdated or done by a well-meaning soul who seems to have as much trouble as me. Of all the BTSM "mission report" threads here, I've found yours most helpful. Thanks for your guidance and inspiration!

[FlowerChild]

The payload is about 618 tons into a 100km orbit with a little fuel left over (not enough for anything serious, maybe shave any rough edges off the orbit). Pad weight is just over 5000 tons, and it consumes just over 5000 L of liquid fuel and oxidizer per second when launched.

<cries>

Ok...I really need to do something about that

[MrOnak]

Just a note, I am coming up on my goal of reaching Eeloo. Once that happens I'll be starting a fresh BTSM file to see how things go with the changes that have been made and how things pay out now that I know some information. I'm looking for input on two things. One is a theme or list of names for ships, ideally alphabetical so that they sort correctly.

How about scientists names? Surely there's a astronomer / engineer / physicist for every letter in the alphabet.

[Dave Kerbin]

Lettuce 1 (Part 1)

This mission will complete my goal of a manned expedition to Eeloo. I got stuck for a while trying to figure out the best way to do this mission in terms of how multiple ships might be utilized and how they would transfer supplies (docking 2 big ships 100 million km from home is not straight forward, nor is pumping fuel on a large, multi-engine, multi-stage vessel). I figure out some requirements, namely delta-v for each portion and a suitable amount of life support for the outbound and return trips (taking into consideration that the return trip might be longer then planned). Then I went and did some asteroid missions before coming back and finally just designing the mission as a single ship.

The launch platform itself is massive at 5000 tons. This is the biggest ship I will launch in KSP, I have neither the computing power or the launchpad space for something bigger at the moment. The payload itself is very similar to a stretched Ham interplanterary rocket and utilizes the upgraded return module tested in Kiwi (this replaces solar power with RTGs that can stay with it during reentry). With the first stage on screen (and within the ~2.5km physics range) it slows the game down to 40%, making some buttons and controls sluggish. Activating SAS requires holding the T key long enough for it to register.

Hanemone Kerman, my first successful kerbonaut, will fly the mission. Launch parameters are programmed and the engines are fired lifting the massive rocket off the pad.

At 18km the ship has already started a gravity turn and must discard the depleted first stage. Whether it is the lower frame rate or the combined heat of so many Mainsail engines the first stage is not merely ejected it is lit on fire, resulting in a chain reaction of explosions among the discarded stage. It also seems to overload the audio system.

We are aiming for a 100km orbit. With a successful gravity turn that won't be a problem and at 50km the engines are cut with 6 minutes of drifting expected before they can be lit up again to circulize. There is still 4400L of fuel available for the 116 m/s burn, though it will be moving a lot (that fuel is divided between 19 engines and 875 tons so it's much less then it sounds). A little over half of that fuel is burned to complete the orbit.

Now in orbit with about 80 m/s of delta-v left in the booster we can begin plotting a course to Eeloo. Since the booster is still attached we can keep the valves closed on the orbital stages monopropellent tanks - no point in wasting them when we need to turn this big ship.

[Dave Kerbin]

Lettuce 1 (Part 2)

As I said before I originally came up with some mission parameters before I went asteroid hunting. With the passage of time the next launch window for Eeloo was a bit different from the last - I found that the new window required a bit more fuel but was a bit faster. Checking I found that I still had enough fuel though it would cut down on my safety. On the opposite side I would obviously have enough life support though in hindsight I might have removed a small amount. The ship is lined up for a long 1974 m/s burn. The 2nd stage booster is only going to last for about 3 seconds and after that we need to rely on the 6 Poodle engines of the orbital section. Pushing 600 tons it is going to take almost 15 minutes.

As you can see the orbital module has 6 main tanks around the center tank (easily identified by the orange tanks they are composed of). 4 of those tanks are small and will be used in stage for this inital injection burn. The 2 double size tanks are going to be kept longer. They will complete the injection burn, be used for mid course plane change and finally should have a little fuel left to aid in capture at Eeloo. That's important since they also have the life support supplies for the outbound trip. By dropping them just as the capture burn starts we can avoid paying an additional fuel cost to carry them into Eeloo orbit.

The length of the injection burn does pose some issues - even at 100km the ship eventually dips to 63km as it cuts across the upper atmosphere. The first pair of tanks are dropped within a few meters of the lowest altitude reached during the burn. The second pair are dropped much later as the ship is climbing out of Kerbin orbit at an altitude of 336km. The burn was started during the day, passed into the night side and then completed on the day side. For this reason both tank drops need a bit of gamma correction to be seen.

Now in deep space a plane change must be executed to encounter Eeloo which will cost another 309 m/s. I didn't really get a good angle for the picture, the maneuver being plotted here is not braking, rather it is adjusting the normal - I'm tilting the course upwards to intersect with Eeloo. One interesting thing I've discovered in the Cupola and look forward to verifying in the other capsules is a neat trick with the navball. Normally you can run into trouble finding the blue maneuver marker because there is no guard as to which direction is the closest to it. With the other markers you have a retrograde counterpart so that you can always see at least one part. Well if you go into IVA view in the Cupola you'll that there is a maneuver retrograde marker, making it easy to line up.

At 256 days into the trip I'm closing in on Eeloo and make some minor course corrections to bring the PE down. I also moved around some life support in advance of reaching Eeloo, shifting as much as I could from the tanks that will be discarded into the tanks that will be kept. This will cut down on the amount of work I'll need to do once I enter Eeloo orbit and need to prepare to discard them.

[babale]

How about scientists names? Surely there's a astronomer / engineer / physicist for every letter in the alphabet.

I might steal that idea for my own mission report when it comes to base and station names...

[Dave Kerbin]

Lettuce 1 (Part 3)

Entering Eeloo's SOI I take some biometric readings and try to do a crew report. For some reason the crew report function on my Cupola is bugged but I can do one if I transfer over to the lander. One of the goo containers is also used - it really doesn't matter if it's high or low orbit so I might as well get it done now. Capture is going to be close on fuel with a 10 minute burn required to get into a very basic orbit. Because I'm approaching at an odd angle (it will be a retrograde orbit for sure) I'm going to leave the orbit wide on one side to see if I can fix it a bit before lowering into a circular orbit. The pair of external tanks are good for about 700 m/s of delta-v, then it's just the center engine.

The ship is now on the capture tank and engine. If I don't even enough delta-v to capture then I'd have to abort since all fuel in the next stage is earmarked for a return to Kerbin. At this point the structure of the return ship becomes more obvious.

With the initial capture burn complete I'm in a long orbit of Eeloo. I calculate about 280 m/s of delta-v remaining in the capture stage and it seems about 230 m/s of that needs to be budgeted towards circulizing the orbit. However it looks like it will only take about 2 m/s to complete the adjustment that I want. I don't have an equatorial orbit but it's as close as I can get in a single pass.

Arriving back at the PE most of the remaining fuel in this stage is burned to bring down the orbit, leaving 220L in the tank. Some more readings are taken and then the next stage of the mission is started immediately.

[Dave Kerbin]

Lettuce 1 (Part 4)

The orbital modules probe is turned on and the lander is launched while still on the dark side of the planet. This is to take advantage of the position and lower the orbit down a bit for a landing on the light side.

Landing is straight forward. Because I built this as a two stage lander there is no reason to try and ration fuel if I know I have enough. As I near the surface there is still lots of fuel in the tank so I slow down for a very soft landing.

All the ships experiments are run including the remaining Goo container and the Science Jr. The ship doesn't have a ladder so a jetpack is needed to bridge the small distance to the ground.

A ground sample and EVA report are taken and then it is time to plant a flag. Since Eeloo rotates, leaving the surface in darkness for some time during an Eeloo 'day', the landers base section comes equipped with a lamp, probe core (apparently without one lights won't stay on) and a pair of RTGs to power both. Hanemone Kerman was the first member of the current 7 member kerbonaut corps, but there where 7 who didn't make it this far.

After observing a minute of silence Hanemone uses his jetpack to return to the lander's cockpit and waits for the orbiter to come around. The engines on the lower stage are turned off, this way the throttle can be brought to full and then the staging activated to launch. I need to launch in the other direction, since it is a retrograde orbit. The target marker helps me make my suborbital path somewhat in line with the orbiter, an adjustment is planned to bring them together.

Docking is straight forward. I did have a minor panic while setting up the approach when it seemed I was out of RCS - it turns out I had forgotten to open the valves on the landers monopropellent tanks before descending, I had accidently made the landing and initial ascent using only the tiny supply in the lander can itself.

Once docked everything of value is transfered back to the orbital module and the lander hardware, minus the experiments, are ejected just like with the Ham class. Lettuce 1 is ready to come home.

[Dave Kerbin]

Lettuce 1 (Part 5)

I tried setting up a return course to Kerbin but got frustrated over an old problem - the maneuver node interface. For the most part I don't have a problem with the design and I'm not looking for all kinds of fancy information but what I do need is for it to respond correctly and predictably to mouse clicks. There are a number of systems (several dialogs in the VAB for instance) where it is obvious there are conflicts between the UnityGUI elements and Squads stuff, meaning that the same mouse clicks get interpretted multiple times. This can vary from minor nuisance (AP/PE nodes are activated) to frustrating like nodes deleting themselves or suddenly changing multiple values at once. The mouse wheel hasn't really helped, since the mouse wheel focus doesn't work consistently either.

So I finally broke down and installed PreciseNode. I don't really like any mod that adds a window, despite them being part of the UnityGUI they never seem to fit with KSP and they clutter things up. After I was finished I did load up a training mission and played around with it, finding that I can remove most of the PreciseNode interface and leave just the basics that I want - adjusting Prograde/Normal/Radial and Time while getting rid of the stuff about ejection angles and conics mode. I'm not completely clueless about how to write Unity code so I'm tempted to make an alternate version that provides just those essentials while integrating more seamlessly with the KSP interface. With PreciseNode it's very straight forward to setup a return since I can adjust my node smoothly and can easily move the node forward/backwards even from a zoomed out position.

The capture drive provides another 50 m/s before it is exhausted. Now it's down to the return system and a 12 minute burn. Returning to Kerbin is easy from this point, PreciseNode makes it very fast to setup maneuver nodes where I'm really only limited by how precise I want to try burning.

On approach to Kerbin I initiate the final stage which discards the side tanks. While I burned most of my fuel getting back to Kerbin (remember that launch window update, it made my fuel much tighter and ended up giving me 300 extra days of life support) by discarding those sections I now double the remaining delta-v to over 800 m/s. There is more then enough life support in the cupola (which was topped off from the containers just before they where ejected). Approaching Kerbin low orbit I make a 700 m/s burn to remove some of my velocity, followed by a minor adjustment to put my PE at 27km. I want to ensure I capture but don't want to go in too hot. I have 20 days of life support so I can easily ride out a long orbit as long as I can capture around Kerbin. There are 2 full tanks of monopropellent on the return capsule that can be used for later orbital adjustment.

The heatshield is deployed as normal on Kerbin's night side and reentry slows the ship down though not enough for a landing. It travels up again on a suborbital path to 100 km, through the day side of Kerbin and lands in a bay near the daylight terminator.

The mission ends with the recovered spacecraft.

[Dave Kerbin]

This playthrough is over, but a new one is just starting. FlowerChild has been making lots of changes to the early game so I'll be playing through them to see if I am better now that I have experience and I need your help. I want to hire 3 kerbals and try to keep them alive as long as possible without hiring replacements.

You can help me choose the 3 brave kerbonauts for my next career by voting here.

[FlowerChild]

Woot! Congrats on hitting your target Dave

[Poddster]

I've enjoyed the series so far. I look forward to the next one!

Will you make a new thread or keep this one?

[Dave Kerbin]

I plan on keeping it here since it will be the same theme and general constraints. I'll update the first post with a link to 'skip' to the second play through.

[Dave Kerbin]

Better Than Starting Manned v1.56 playthrough

This is the start of a fresh career with the latest version of BTSM. My aim here is to try out the revisions to the start of the game and see if I do better now that I know more about the mod. My end game goal won't be as big as before - I enjoy the heavily constrained early game much more then the more sandbox late game. So my goal this time will be to return a Goo sample from the surface of Laythe to help determine if the moon could be colonized by kerbals - not a few scattered scientists in pressurized domes, but a real colony living outside. I've neared 'landed' on Laythe proper, though I have splashed down in the large ocean that covers most of the moon, so that should provide something new and interesting.

I'll also be trying extra hard to conserve kerbals. There is voting on to select my 3 recruits who I will try and keep alive. The poll is open for another 6 days or so but I'll be taking the results whenever I reach manned flight which could be soon (though I've learned from my first playthrough and won't be unlocking capsules until I'm sure I can fly them safely).

[Dave Kerbin]

Arend 1-4

Back at the beginning of the tech tree there is an immediate change. The original small solid booster is gone, replaced by the tiny KESTES-1. This little booster has less power and has limiting mounting options - I attach anything under it, and it can't be attached radially. That means my first design is pretty fixed, it's going to be a single booster. I'm using 4 way symmetry in the hopes that it provides the best balance for the physics engine. Lifting off I can't use the 2Hot immediately, it says I'm flying too low. As Arend 1 climbs it slowly starts to tip toward the mission control building but it is still flying too low. At 10km the solid booster cuts out but I'm still not high enough. Finally at around 12km I am flying low and I can take a reading and transmit it.

The probe levels off at 16km and falls back to Kerbin in the field outside the KSC. Nothing is left of it. I can unlock the next item which provides the PresMat and small battery along with a new type of booster. This one can't have anything mounted on top of it (built in nose cone) but it can be mounted radially to other things. This is used to build Arend 2 which now has 4 radial boosters, staged to fire in pairs before the original center booster. This design starts to tip even faster, by the time it reaches 12.4km (now confirmed as the start of flying low) it has almost turned horizontal and is mainly relying on upward momentum to climb. I get a low flying PresMat reading but nothing else.

2 solid boosters survive the crash and are now sitting a good distance away from the KSC. Arend 3 tries a short sighted solution to the tilting problem. 6 boosters are used, 4 tied together for the first stage and 2 (mounted east/west) are staged apart so that one can be activated early to try and correct the direction of travel. There are 2 problems with this. One is that the ship doesn't tilt anywhere near as far as Arend 2. The second is that the booster provides too much power and the forced staging delay means the other engine can't cut in soon enough to do anything. The ship is launched into a spin and becomes a write off, the only thing I learned was that it was safe to operate 2 KESTES-1.5 boosters beside each other without overheating.

Arend 4 is the last ship in the series. It mounts 8 radial boosters in a square arrangement and stages them with the center as 4->4->1. It tilts over like Arend 1 but not as much as Arend 2. By the time it reaches 12km it is already on the final booster and traveling at 400 m/s though it is slowing down for the moment because the booster doesn't have enough thrust to maintain that speed. As the air thins out it begins to speed up. At 29.9km the flying high point is found and readings are taken. At 37km the final booster cuts out with the probe traveling at 720 m/s. It coasts all the way up to 64km, nearly reaching space before coming back down on the far side of the mountains.

Debris from Arend 2 can be seen off in the distance. Nothing will survive of Arend 4 when it crashes. The science is used to unlock basic flight control which gives me fins and the GravMax. I'm pretty sure with some basic control that I can reach a suborbital flight.

[Kiwa]

Just wanted to say I very much enjoy reading this thread

[Dave Kerbin]

Baldwin 1

Arend was a series of unguided atmospheric rockets simply designed to 'go up'. Baldwin is my first guided rocket and did get a few minutes of math to get a rough idea of how much power it would need to carry, what that would weigh, and what booster arrangement should be used to put it into space on a suborbital path. The arrangement is very similar to Arend 4, only 4 more boosters are added that feature the new wing control surface. There are additional batteries (12 batteries in all) and the instruments have been rearranged to include a GravMax and to try and remove as many redundent parts as possible. It's still weight balanced (with a second 2Hot required) but doesn't follow the earlier model of trying to get it perfect since I can correct for minor changes with the fins. Staging is setup as 4->4->2->2+1, with the large center booster being the +1.

The first 3 booster stages lift it to 10km at 174 m/s with the fins providing stability. The final stage runs on 3 boosters until the 2 smaller ones run out, then its a long push on the center booster up to 42km. By now most of the atmosphere has been cleared and the AP is at 80km which should put us in space. Coasting into space I can run three instruments - a single use of the GravMax over Kerbin's shores for 25 science plus the 16 and 8 science for the PresMat and 2Hot. I haven't budgeted battery power for anything else so after transmissions are complete the probe falls back down though there is just enough power left to keep it running up until impact.

The impact is rather unusual since despite a lack of parachutes only the probe core, a battery, the antenna and a 2Hot are destroyed on impact. Everything else survives. I unlock the T15 liquid engine and T800 fuel tank and while I've got a good amount of science left I'm not unlocking the first manned pod+parachute yet, I want to work with the liquid engine first and be sure I have a working ship before I start putting kerbals in danger. I may end up unlocking the node with the smaller liquid engine or the stack decoupler first as soon as I get a few more points of science to afford them.