Excel mission pack 1 - Getting to orbit

[DonLorenzo]

Hey guys,

Togfox recently started his excellent forum run space race (http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=9763.0) and some of my friends have expressed their desire for in-game missions to complete so I\'ve made some for them. The attached excel sheet has five sequential missions, including money management and gradually unlocking parts.

It uses stock parts, plus the ZOxygen mod (http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=9763.0) (the part limitation + addition of a heavy oxy module serve mainly to thwart the \'oh look 3 tanks + engine does everything\' solution). I expect most people here will find the missions fairly simple, but they should be accessible to newer players as well I think.

Let me know what you think of this, if you guys like it I\'ll make some more \'chapters\'

Credits to togfox for his part costings balance (which i copied and modified) and l00 for the Zoxygene mod.

Cheers

edit: urgh in mission 3 i switched around the > and < sign. I think the message is clear regardless though

[Thobewill10]

Awesome! This should be fun!

I wonder if this could be implemented in plugin form... Hmm...

[DonLorenzo]

Awesome! This should be fun!

I wonder if this could be implemented in plugin form... Hmm...

Not my be, that\'s for sure This kind of excel-fu is the closest I come to programming. Anyone that wants to try is free to lift anything they please though.

[Zutha]

I haven\'t played KSP in ages as I was running out of challenges and found most mod packs are almost cheat like.

Been waiting for missions with money limitation for ages

Nice one.

[DonLorenzo]

Have a look at this (http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=10408.0) as well. It\'s togfoxes campaign, more interactive and in-depth than this and a race to boot

[nom]

I\'m pretty new to this, and I\'m having a hard time using the solid booster; they keep overheating, even if I just place 2 (I haven\'t tried just one - that seems unstable) on the side of the stack. What am I doing wrong?

[togfox]

Nom, can you post a picture or the craft file so we can help.

Don, ive given you my early thoughts but ill give this a crack when im not mapping the mun. 8)

[DonLorenzo]

I\'m pretty new to this, and I\'m having a hard time using the solid booster; they keep overheating, even if I just place 2 (I haven\'t tried just one - that seems unstable) on the side of the stack. What am I doing wrong?

Are you placing them on top of each other by any chance? You shouldn\'t do that. just one is stable enough, just doesn\'t go very far. If you show your craft we can tell you exactly what\'s up

[nom]

No, I\'m not placing them on top of each other (at least not without a decoupler in the middle). I learned that pretty early

Here\'s one:

The side boosters blow up around the time they\'re half full.

Sorry for hi-jacking your excellent thread. This is just the sort of thing I was looking for!

[Romfarer]

@Nom. A general rule when placing SRB\'s onto SRB\'s directly is that you have to connect each of them to something else, with a strut. For example. Place your middle SRB. Then place 2, 3, 4 or 6 SRB\'s directly on it. Then for each of these SRB\'s place a strut from it to the center SRB.

[RulerOfNothing]

The first mission doesn\'t allow struts Romfarer. nom, have you tried putting the central SRB in its own stage (probably should fire after the outer SRBs though)?

[nom]

Ingenious, RulerOfNothing! Thanks for the tip about struts, Romfarer.

[DonLorenzo]

Yep, staggering the staging can help with heat. In fact, it\'s also the only way to do something resembling \'throttling\' on a big pile of SRBs. I consider this kind of stuff completely on-topic so don\'t worry

[DonLorenzo]

After spending some time playing around with many rockets I\'ve taken a stab at balancing the part cost and mission rewards. Attached is a revised version of the missions. Also, is anyone interested in a second chapter or is this kind of excelling just too dry?

[RulerOfNothing]

I\'d be interested in a second chapter DonLorenzo.

[Alchemist]

The distance mission should have a cap, otherwise it\'s possible to make several full orbits at 69 km (so that ZO2 still works) with some correction burns and get incredible amounts of money. (my craft for that costs 18550)

[DonLorenzo]

The distance mission should have a cap, otherwise it\'s possible to make several full orbits at 69 km (so that ZO2 still works) with some correction burns and get incredible amounts of money. (my craft for that costs 18550)

Hah, good point. It had gone wonky completely in the latest version, paying out 3K even on 0 meters. Fixed and capped.

On a side note I\'m finding it terribly hard to make challenging missions in a sequence that pay out enough but not too much, so that next missions are not impossible or a blatant money fest. I think it\'s probably because most \'beginner\' missions are actually quite easy to do with few stock parts. I think I\'ll leave this chapter as is now and make a second one, focussed on putting satellites in orbit, possibly having multiple launches per mission.

Could you guys tell me how much cash you have left over after the last mission here? possibly with craft designs if you think they\'re ingenious

[DonLorenzo]

No new excel pack quite yet, in stead I tried making a campaign. find it here: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=11947.0