Newbie sees weird things happening

[MathmoRichard]

Hello! I'm Richard (a Mathematician and keen Rocket Scientist), I'm new to KSP, I'm loving the game (my battery isn't though), anyway, just a couple of queries...

In the EVA scenario, I managed to land my Kerbal on his own! He burned up and didn't die, then I jet packed up and at this terminal velocity the landing didn't kill him. I can swallow the landing but he was a massive fireball! I think Jebediah is a true legend, but maybe the game needs to address re-entry.

More importantly I notice that anything survives burning up in the atmosphere, I would have thought the temperature stat for each part limits the heat stress something can take, I think a lot of people (like the Eve landers) would get a shock if this was more realistic.

Second, I don't understand the mainsail engine. If you have an orange tank and a mainsail its weight and fuel is exactly the same as the LFB KR, but the latter is much cheaper and has a higher I_sp and thrust. The former also tends to over heat more easily it seems. Can someone please explain if I've missed something here and why you would ever use the mainsail.

Thank you.

[technicalfool]

Hello Richard, and welcome to the forums.

As you may have figured out, Kerbal Space Program is a game still in a state of development. You wouldn't be the first person here to complain about the balance of the new NASA ARM parts that came with 0.23.5 versus the venerable old Mainsail engine, and some of the bugs in the aerodynamics have been

.

There's a good list of planned features and their current status over on the wiki, as well as an Already Suggested list here on the forums. As well as the What Not To Suggest thread, these should give you an idea of what's already been brought up, and what's being done about it.

As well as that we have the Announcements, and the Daily Kerbal forums, which include features and regular announcements from the developers on what they've been up to every week.

Of course, the modding community for this game is fantastic. If you want your ships to explode in a fireball if you don't shield up properly, you can do that with the Deadly Reentry mod. If you want a star system that's more realistically sized, there's a mod for that. Ferram Aerospace Research is a tweak to aerodynamics that adds extra features and challenges. TAC Lifesupport makes all of your manned vessels require food/water/oxygen supplies, and things like Kerbal Interstellar, SCANsat and the Kethane mod add too many parts and features to be mentioning here!

I hope you'll stick around and see what this game has to offer as it develops. Or perhaps have a look at the Old Versions archive thread here to see just how far the game has come. Looking back at some of those really early versions, I'm quite confident the developers can iron out most of your issues by the time v1.0 happens. If not, well, I'm sure there'll be a mod for it.

[edit] Duplicate thread merged.

Edited June 27, 2014 by technicalfool

[StuntMax]

Yes, in stock KSP atmospheric reentries are easy cake, as stuff doesn't burn as one may expect.

One of the coolest feats in KSP is the wide availabilty of third party mods you can use to tweak the gameplay to meet your taste.

A mod called deadly reentry makes stuff that dives in the atmosphere burn like a bristle in a volcano (and you need heat shields to make reentrable spacecrafts)

There are also mods to make your kerbals need for life support (you can leave them in space for years with no food or oxygen in stock KSP), a better aerodynamic mode, enhanced instruments...

You have to use the mainsail in the career mode, as you unlock rockomax parts far earlier than the big ones.

Also, you can add a decoupler and another stage under a mainsail, but not under a KR.

Have fun!

Edited June 26, 2014 by StuntMax

[Pecan]

There is never a good reason to use a mainsail engine*, but the whole career mode is going to get a big change in version 0.24; which is in final testing before release. Costs will become important and the parts are being rebalanced, amongst other things.

*Whackjob put me in my place

Edited July 1, 2014 by Pecan

[MathmoRichard]

Thank for the replies everyone!

technicalfool: Why can't I get a turbine working now? Has that been patched? I seem to struggle getting the angular velocity particularly high.

Can anyone recommend a tool to give stats in the VAB. I am all vanilla, I think it's more fun that way, but as a budding rocket scientist I am craving stats, particularly TWR, but I'm sure I've seen Scott Manley using a stat that was great for take offs, sometimes I can't work out how big the 'asparagus' stages should be.

StuntMax: A point I may have forgotten to make is that they are unlocked at the same time, in career mode.

[technicalfool]

technicalfool: Why can't I get a turbine working now? Has that been patched? I seem to struggle getting the angular velocity particularly high.

Can anyone recommend a tool to give stats in the VAB. I am all vanilla, I think it's more fun that way, but as a budding rocket scientist I am craving stats, particularly TWR, but I'm sure I've seen Scott Manley using a stat that was great for take offs, sometimes I can't work out how big the 'asparagus' stages should be.

I'm not sure what you mean. Are you stuck getting the stock jet engines to work, or are you trying to build some spinny contraption out of aero parts?

As for TWR and Delta V, Flight Engineer Redux should give you that functionality without the flight computer/autopilot functionality of Mechjeb 2. The latter includes almost everything but the kitchen sink as far as manoeuvring assistance goes, so you might not want it if you're trying to stay as close to stock as you can.

[MathmoRichard]

I'm not sure what you mean. Are you stuck getting the stock jet engines to work, or are you trying to build some spinny contraption out of aero parts?

Yeah that was referring to the "comical effect" thing - I made something which looks then same but it doesn't work when I roll the craft, it does add to acceleration slightly though.

As for TWR and Delta V, Flight Engineer Redux should give you that functionality without the flight computer/autopilot functionality of Mechjeb 2. The latter includes almost everything but the kitchen sink as far as manoeuvring assistance goes, so you might not want it if you're trying to stay as close to stock as you can.

Mechjeb is what I wanted to avoid! Thank you!

[technicalfool]

Yeah that was referring to the "comical effect" thing - I made something which looks then same but it doesn't work when I roll the craft, it does add to acceleration slightly though.

Heh, infinigliders are still very much possible. The trick is to clip a lot of control surfaces together. I'm not sure about building turbine-type infinigliders myself, but I'm sure someone will be able to help.

[AlamoVampire]

<snipping all that didnt bug me - AlamoVampire > Mechjeb is what I wanted to avoid! Thank you!

<grabs his chest in shock> Why would you want to avoid something that gives you tremendous power in this game? By power I mean of course Knowledge. Also, while I see you are fairly new here, it I MUST state this: MechJeb provides you autopilot. I for one cannot fathom why someone would try to avoid such a tool. MechJeb is a vital tool. Here is why:

1. It can teach YOU how to do very hard things such as rendezvous and docking. Yes, I am well aware of the multitudes of tutorials out there on the subject, but, the fact is, they show you how THEY dock with THEIR craft. MechJeb does what all of those tutorials COMBINED can NEVER do. Teach you to dock using a craft YOU built. That simple.

2. It gives you nearly if not ALL the data kerbal engineer can AND its an autopilot <see above, AND below>.

3. It will do the long protracted burns for you. Heck, if your one of those guys who has multiple missions going, I would be willing to wager <have not tried this myself other than watching it dock for me from the view point of my target station> it will perform those burns for you while you are away from the vessel <so long as execute ALL nodes is active>. It will also do all lengthy interplanetary burns FOR YOU with its autopilot.

4. It can pinpoint <usually> land you at any anomaly or target location so long as you know the coordinates OR have selected a target to land at.

5. It is a wildly useful bit of technology, why would you forsake it? Its like saying youd rather carry this:

instead of this:

or perhaps fly on this:

instead of this:

have I gone overboard on my examples? Probably, but, it never fails to confuse the heck out of my why people willing hamstring and hobble themselves in this game...

[MathmoRichard]

Sorry AlamoVampire, I will have to disagree. I have already learned how to do all those things solo, totally vanilla, I understand dynamics well enough. All I need is manoeuvre nodes. I know only MechJeb will get you into a close Pe in one move but I'm happy with a small correction burn half way around, I can get pretty close myself. I will also enjoy performing certain calculations or at least looking them up. It is all much more realistic this way.

Why would I want to watch an AI play my mission? I want to play my game myself.

The one point you have is long burns, but I have hope that the developers will see this as a vanilla limitation and improve time warp or something. Either way, Jeb is gonna sit through the whole thing, so can I.

I might consider MechJeb when Eeloo becomes my second home.

[AlamoVampire]

Considering that mechjeb does that list i gave you and so much more so well Squad will very likely NOT add those functions stock as they seem to think hobbling you in those features a fun game makes (it doesnt imho). Which if that holds true its either get MJ which is light years superior to KER because it does more or stay hobbled. Sad thing that they seem unwilling to add such vital things to the game. Best of luck

[micha]

FWIW, having only just started playing, I like the idea of being able to program very simple things into probes (eg, at this time, point to X, and perform burn at Y% for Z time).

But apart from that having a complete autopilot like MechJeb does sound over the top to me - part of the fun (for me) is figuring out how and when to burn to reach a particular destination. I may change my mind once I spend more hours in the game.

I guess everybody likes to play the game in their own way

[technicalfool]

FWIW, having only just started playing, I like the idea of being able to program very simple things into probes (eg, at this time, point to X, and perform burn at Y% for Z time).

I haven't tried this one, but kOS might be what you're looking for there. "Scriptable autopilot system."

[Dunbaratu]

I haven't tried this one, but kOS might be what you're looking for there. "Scriptable autopilot system."

kOS is definitely exactly what was described. For example, for something like what was described, it would let you write a script like so:

SET DelaySeconds to 500.  // For Example.
SET TimeStart TO TIME:SECONDS.
SET BurnSeconds to 90. // for example.

LOCK STEERING TO RETROGRADE.

WAIT UNTIL TIME:SECONDS > TimeStart + DelaySeconds.

LOCK THROTTLE TO 0.5. // 50% for example.
SET BurnStart to TIME:SECONDS.

WAIT UNTIL TIME:SECONDS > BurnStart + BurnSeconds.

LOCK THROTTLE TO 0.0.  // Stop the burning.

[Dunbaratu]

Considering that mechjeb does that list i gave you and so much more so well Squad will very likely NOT add those functions stock as they seem to think hobbling you in those features a fun game makes (it doesnt imho). Which if that holds true its either get MJ which is light years superior to KER because it does more or stay hobbled. Sad thing that they seem unwilling to add such vital things to the game. Best of luck

Different people find different parts of the game fun. If the parts of the game you are letting the MJ programmers play for you are parts of the game you find kind of boring, then that makes perfect sense to do that. There's no reason to force somebody to do something boring, so there's nothing wrong with using MJ autopilot if you like it.

But there *is* something wrong with pretending the people who don't use MJ are motivated to do so by a luddite mentality. For a lot of us, it's because the things it does are things we still want under our own control.

When I build a rocket in the VAB, I have the power to shoot myself in the foot and design it wrong and make a big exploding mess if I'm not smart about it. That gives me player agency and makes it feel good when I get it right. (if it's impossible to get it wrong, then I feel no satisfaction upon getting it right).

That's why I got into kOS. It's true that NASA used autopilots to get to the Moon. But they didn't have a working autopilot magically dropped on their doorstep working out of the box. The work put into the computer side of the Apollo project was just as important as the engineering effort at building the craft. I want to be involved in that side of things too and not just give it over to other people to do for me.

[Claw]

I like playing all stock but I did add MechJeb (and Kerbal Alarm).

MechJeb is mighty and powerful, but also remember that nobody forces you to use it in any way. I've only ever let it land and dock once just to see how it did. (Don't ask what happened to my space station...)

Anyway, I do use it when I've already launched 10 rockets in a row. Sometimes that part gets a bit tedious. (Although it also isn't perfect when circularizing orbits...) In any case, what I do absolutely use it for is all the information. I'm in information junkie, and it's made the difference for me to move from a wandering gamer to someone who can actually design a thing to do what I want. Incidentally, I only chose MJ over KER because of looks. (I found out later it has an autopilot.)

Anyway, all that being said, don't let anyone tell you that you MUST have it, or any mod for that matter. (And MJ is one of those mods that a lot of people have an opinion on...) I always recommend to folks to play vanilla for a while till you decide what's important to you. Then go look for mods that scratch that itch. For me, it's MJ and Alarm. I'm pretty happy with those for now. They provide a lot of empowerment without changing the basic gameplay.

Oh, and by the way:

Welcome to the forums!!

[micha]

@technicalfool & SteveM: Thanks; I'll check it out! Sounds like just the ticket for un-kerballed probes.

[MathmoRichard]

Thanks guys for all the replies! Loving the game and the forum. Are there any bugs with the science centre? I just did a (successful failure) landing on the Mün and I swear I got the data but then it didn't all show up, but then I went back and the science points were depleted... ahhh!

[Xacktar]

Thanks guys for all the replies! Loving the game and the forum. Are there any bugs with the science centre? I just did a (successful failure) landing on the Mün and I swear I got the data but then it didn't all show up, but then I went back and the science points were depleted... ahhh!

Can you give a few more details on how you got your science? If you gathered science on the Mun but didn't transmit it back, then you won't have at at the KSC. (You can get antenna's in the science tab of the builder, or you can go for double the awesome and return your capsule to Kerbin and recover more science for some of the science gatherers)

[AlamoVampire]

Steve mading you misrepresent my words.

Edited June 30, 2014 by AlamoVampire

[Whackjob]

Welcome to the forums!

And the question is never, "Why should I use a mainsail?", but rather, "Why shouldn't I use all of the mainsails?"

[MathmoRichard]

Lol Whackjob..

Can you give a few more details on how you got your science? If you gathered science on the Mun but didn't transmit it back, then you won't have at at the KSC. (You can get antenna's in the science tab of the builder, or you can go for double the awesome and return your capsule to Kerbin and recover more science for some of the science gatherers)

I always retrieve the science by EVA and keep it in the return capsule.