Maria's BTSM Playthrough: Science on a Budget (Picture Heavy)

[Tonnetz]

Better than Starting Manned (Womaned) (Kerbaled) is a nice gameplay enhancement mod; its thread is at

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogra.com/threads/61632-0-24-2-Better-Than-Starting-Manned-Career-Mode-Redefined-%28v1-622-Aug-24th%29

though I've not really read through it past the download post.

BTSM's pretty easy to install: copy the files from the DREC archive, copy the files from the BTSM archive, start up KSP, and there are the patches all loaded in:

Last I saw, career BTSM was deemed playable, but not balanced yet, so I'll be running a science campaign instead:

However, I like the idea of having to be budget-conscious. So here's the scenario that I'll be playing through: KSC is expected to bring in one unit of science for every 500 funds spent. Recovered vessels have no monetary value, though there's no rule against refueling and relaunching from the touchdown point. We'll see whether that 500 is a realistic figure or notâ€â€I honestly have no idea.

[Tonnetz]

Starting out is pretty simple: you have a probe core, a solid rocket motor, thermometers, and antennas. There are only so many ways you can combine them. I'm using two-way symmetry here (notice the symmetry indicator in the lower left) to keep mass imbalance from tipping our sounding rocket over.

And up the Zulu goes for 4 science:

No parachutes yet, so that's money down the drain. The science was worth it, but even if we can't sell the public on that, they got a good show on impact:

See that debris cloud under the motor? The whole thing just bounced off the exploding probe core and sailed another 100m or so before the big kablooie:

Not much choice about what to purchase either:

Batteries, boosters, and barometers it is!

Total cost so far: 1700

Total science so far: 4

Per-unit cost of science so far: 425

Vessels recovered so far: 0

Missions failed so far: 0

Kerbonauts recovered so far: 0

Kerbonauts killed so far: 0

Under budget.

[Tonnetz]

Next up is the Yankee. (I'm going in reverse NATO alphabetic order so that the newest ships will appear at the top of the craft list.)

Our options are still pretty limited as, to continue, we need to get temperature from the upper atmosphere and barometric pressure in both altitude ranges. The plan here is to fit as many boosters as we can without going over our launch pad's weight limit. We'll fire them in pairs, one after the other, to minimize ÃŽâ€v losses to air resistance. The central motor lights from the get-go and will run out before the last pair of boosters finishâ€â€while not optimal, I think this is the best ascent profile we can get with our current technology.

First up after the fuel is spent are the barometric readings from low atmosphere:

You'll notice that the rocket has tilted a ways off the vertical, and is now flying west. I have a theory about that.

~_~/â–¤

As the rocket goes up, its inertia has two components: an obvious vertical one, which is mostly irrelevant here, and a horizontal one imparted by the spinning surface. So, according to Kerbin's reference frame, the rocket starts out going east (west relative to the surface, because the surface has more radial velocity, but east when we ignore surface spin). But, being perfectly balanced, it doesn't have any notable rotational momentum off the pad. So it's still aimed up with respect to its take-off point, not with respect to the surface now under it. In other words, it has tilted every so slightly west. Exacerbate that tilt with the fact that so much mass is sitting up there in the probe core, and you get the phenomenon seen here.

Anyway, we follow up with pressure readings from higher up:

And we grab the temperature while we're there:

...or we would if the batteries hadn't given out:

Oh well. Half the transmission made it, and the remainder is only 2 science. We'll finish the reading once we have recoverable rockets.

Time warping down, we find a nice scenic lithobraking spot:

Having justified the program's merit yet again, we're back to negotiating for more R&D:

Now normally I would go for control surfaces, which are in that middle node. But I've had lots of trouble with winged rockets flipping over in KSP 24. So we're going to research liquid engines (yay!) and greater launch pad capacity (double yay!) instead.

Total cost so far: 5360

Total science so far: 22

Per-unit cost of science so far: 244

Vessels recovered so far: 0

Missions failed so far: 0

Kerbonauts recovered so far: 0

Kerbonauts killed so far: 0

Very much under budget.

[Tonnetz]

Alright, time to go to space! The is the X-Ray, which looks a lot like the Yankee: a central column with science and a few batteries and as many boosters as we can fit around the edges:

I know ahead-of-time that the staging has the boosters separated into more groups than they need to be. But I'm lazy and don't want to work out the ascent profile by hand; I'll just keep my eye on the speedometer and fire concurrent stages when necessary.

Except...the X-Ray is having a bad problem and will not go to space today:

;_;

Westward rotation on this one is a tad too strong. I guess we'll have to weight the craft a little to the east. Say by dropping one antenna and moving the other one up on top of the probe core:

And hey, not bad:

(See how we're headed northeast now, not west? Yeah, COM tweaks are touchy.)

Our apoapsis is quite nice:

So it's time to get down to science!

and more science:

Our batteries were enough this time because we only took one barometric reading.

Also of note, 130km is too high for survivable freefall:

0_<

That done, I feel that we really need more sources of science. The node at the bottom has unpressurized cockpits, but I don't think they'll get us anything more than a low-altitude crew report. So I'm banking on the Gravioli instead.

But I'm still not going to use wings.

Looking ahead, we have more liquid-fueled motors in the top right, additional tonnage and decouplers just below that, and control of some sort (probably RCS) in the lower corner. The other thrusters won't help much without decouplers, and RCS is superfluous until we have more tonnageâ€â€we can aim suborbital flights pretty well just by scooting their COM around. So our sights are set on General Construction.

Total cost so far: 19480

Total science so far: 46

Per-unit cost of science so far: 423

Vessels recovered so far: 0

Missions failed so far: 1

Kerbonauts recovered so far: 0

Kerbonauts killed so far: 0

Still under budget but slightly embarrassed.

Edited September 1, 2014 by Tonnetz
Embarrassed to have misspelled "embarrassed"

[Tonnetz]

Okay, with the Gravioli now in our inventory, it's time to scan some biomes. Since I'm avoiding control surfaces, there's nothing new to use in the lifter; I'll just change out the payload on the X-Ray:

I remembered extra batteries, but not enough, as we'll see.

And we're off!

Apoapsis looks good:

So does the science:

And yet.... Not again!

At this point I remember wrongly and think that we're at the weight limit, like a lot of the earlier rockets were. So I'm resigned to pulling in partial gravity scans until we can do more R&D.

As consolation, I notice that we pass over that island to the northeast of KSC before coming out of low space. A relauch, and yep:

Hello, little island! I know we just met, but you're so cute that I want to take a scan. It's not really that creepy, now is it?

¬_¬

Aw, my instruments failed.

Bummer. Even less science.

Well, at least I've been flying X-Rays long enough to know how I want the staging. I go back to tweak it. And then I realize that we're not actually at the weight limit! A couple more columns of batteries later:

I think it's still economical to finish up our ocean and island science, so we launch once more. Unfortunately, the COM deviation from the misaligned antenna is no longer pointing us at the island:

We'll have to settle for scanning the water.

I'm going to buy General Construction now that we can afford it. Just so that I can feel that satisfaction of having hit that milestone.

Okay. We still have some more gravity scans to run to the west, which means a change to our COM. Rather than try to get the antenna in the exact center (very tricky) or risk overbalancing, I'm just going to use symmetry mode. The second antenna is 300 extra funds per launch, but I'd rather spend that than risk a useless flight.

As expected, the yaw looks quite nice:

We should definitely make it through grasslands, highlands, and mountains. With Kerbin's eastward rotation, we might even get to deserts or shores.

No luck on the further biomes, but we do get the first three scans easily:

And I'm eager for some more technology. RCS looks nice, and I think that might be jets in the tier after that, so let's unlock the prerequisite:

Ooh, scratch that. We found the goo node! Sooo buying.

Actually, in retrospect, I should have guessed that unlocking parachutes would lead to goo. Goo's kindof hard to recover without parachutes. Not impossible, mind you, assuming you have decent control authority, but still.

Total cost so far: 68320

Total science so far: 157.5

Per-unit cost of science so far: 434

Vessels recovered so far: 0

Missions failed so far: 1

Kerbonauts recovered so far: 0

Kerbonauts killed so far: 0

Absentminded yet still under budget.

[Tonnetz]

I'm very excited for this goo. Nearby gravity-scan opportunities are beginning to peter out, but this should sustain our scientific inquiries.

Here's our first recoverable vessel design. I made it small, so I don't think it can get to space, but it should at least start us out with both of the atmospheric layers.

I'm not using staging yet, though I considered it. I don't think we need it for this mission, and my pride would like to say that we recovered the whole craft.

The Whiskey certainly gets to low atmosphere:

...and high atmosphere:

...and, oh dear, we're headed into space!

o_O

Not sure we can survive reentry on only 124L of fuel. Especially with no control authority.

Fortunately, we reenter facing pretty close to retrograde. I'm a little panicky, so I burn higher up than I should:

I'm holding on to 22L in case the touchdown velocity is excessive. Okay, there's that lack of control:

903℃ on the probe core. Please don't burn it or the parachutes off!

/_\

/_o\

Haha! We survived. Chutes semi-deployed and craft (slowly) starting to flip back from a -90° α:

I tried to guess the landing altitude based on when the chutes fully deployed. Turns out that I was off by about 90m. Only realized my mistake soon enough to spend a few liters of fuel. Eh, the science survived.

I'll count that as half a recovery. Sorry, pride.

58 science, at about 177 funds per unit. Not bad.

Another launch, this time being more careful with the apoapsis:

And more science on the way:

Unfortunately, the reentry heading is, erm, not good.

I try some burning anyway, but give up pretty quickly. Things are not looking so promising. 950℃:

But we make it again!

\^o^/

...for an additional 51.3 science:

Whew. It's really time for some RCS.

It turns out that that aerodynamics node doesn't have jets. Just an XL parachute and a heatshield. And some other stuff that won't be much use. We'll want to pursue that line later, as jets have to be somewhere along the way, but things are too tight just now.

That's okay. I spot another tempting prize. That's an SAS sitting over there, and we can almost afford it.

Total cost so far: 88908

Total science so far: 266.8

Per-unit cost of science so far: 333

Vessels recovered so far: 1.5

Missions failed so far: 1

Kerbonauts recovered so far: 0

Kerbonauts killed so far: 0

Rattled but still under budget.

Edited September 2, 2014 by Tonnetz

[sdj64]

Very good and well documented. Nice work with shifting the COM to get different biomes. Surprised no one else has commented so far.

[Tonnetz]

Very good and well documented. Nice work with shifting the COM to get different biomes.

Thanks!

[Tonnetz]

We've not sent Kerbals anywhere yet, so I have a gander at that cockpit that came with the goo. Looks like we'll be limited to crew reports in the two atmospheric bands. Also, wowzer. Half an hour of life support on an atmo-only cockpit. I bet you could circumnavigate Kerbin with that.

I mount it on top of the Whiskey lifter and strap on some RCS. Not sure that that qualifies it for a new series, but I suspect that our pilot will be more comfortable climbing into a craft titled Victor than one named Whiskey.

We're rooting for you Dilzor!

Dilzor cuts the engines early and smiles for the camera. Hi, Mom!

^_^/

Oops, apoapsis wasn't high enough.

>_<

Dilzor burns again and sneaks just above the 30km mark. I think he bonked his head on the relightâ€â€looks like there's a cut under his left eye.

Ladies and gentlemen, Dilzor, the unflappable optimist:

The Victor is heavier than the Whiskey, so there's all the more need for a powered descent:

I say that, but still don't take the advice quite enough to heart. An 8m/s impact will crush engines. Who knew? Another half recovery.

Also, gotta love Dilzor's face.

35 science at 376 funds per unit. Very nice.

Unfortunately, to recap, all of our science sources except the Gravioli are now maxed out up to low space. (Well, there's still those 2 science to pick up taking the upper atmosphere's temperature, but that hardly counts.) We'll be shooting for 250km next, and I think that's high enough to justify an SAS purchase:

Total cost so far: 102052

Total science so far: 301.8

Per-unit cost of science so far: 338

Vessels recovered so far: 2

Missions failed so far: 1

Kerbonauts recovered so far: Dilzor (1×)

Kerbonauts killed so far: 0

Under budget and graced by a new celebrity.