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Kerbal Space Program : like model rocket building but better and [no longer] free
- Thread starter FlyinJ
- Start date
Looking for advice on this as well.
Thank you, and he's a fellow Scot, sweet.
My go-to resource on all things KSP. Awesome guy.
Here is the basic part of my final final Mun landers:
- Remote control for the Pod
- KV-909 Liquid Fuel Engine (The really small engine rocket)
- FL-T200 Fuel Tank
- There are more little stuff but it's like, RCS, solar panels... etc small stuff so it can recharge its batteries
That is what I use only after it is already orbiting the Mun's lower atmosphere so it can land. Before getting there, I got an atomic engine and other engines that helped me get there. That final stuff should be enough to land on the Mun and then get back to the home planet
Take a look also at some stock models already available if it helps you visualize it ! Also look for some Youtube videos like Scott Manley that have some nice instructions on how to do those things in efficient manners.This is actually a pretty good basic image on how real moon landing works:
Slingshot !
ReadingRambo
Member
My method for getting to Munar Orbit.
-Get in a decent parking orbit around Kerbin (100km-150km) Get it as circular as you can. It is important that when you launch you do your gravity turn to the East so that you will be in a fairly equatorial orbit. Makes getting a Mun encounter much easier.
-Set Mun as target
-In map view scroll out and place the Mun at the 3 o'clock position on your screen or therabouts.
-Set a maneuver node at the 6 o'clock position on your orbit, drag the prograde vector until your orbit extends to reach that of Mun's.
-Some slight fidgeting may be required to get a positive encounter. Once you get a positive encounter, burn prograde at your node!
-Fast forward to target Mun encounter, once you reach the encounter position your trajectory will switch to a (brief) encounter with Mun. Set a node on the new Ap and burn retrograde to create a Munar orbit.
-Get in a decent parking orbit around Kerbin (100km-150km) Get it as circular as you can. It is important that when you launch you do your gravity turn to the East so that you will be in a fairly equatorial orbit. Makes getting a Mun encounter much easier.
-Set Mun as target
-In map view scroll out and place the Mun at the 3 o'clock position on your screen or therabouts.
-Set a maneuver node at the 6 o'clock position on your orbit, drag the prograde vector until your orbit extends to reach that of Mun's.
-Some slight fidgeting may be required to get a positive encounter. Once you get a positive encounter, burn prograde at your node!
-Fast forward to target Mun encounter, once you reach the encounter position your trajectory will switch to a (brief) encounter with Mun. Set a node on the new Ap and burn retrograde to create a Munar orbit.
gutterboy44
Member
Ok, so the new SAS takes a min to understand. First off , there is no more ASAS. There are the two old ASAS wheels but they just add SAS functionality to your craft, that is if you don't have a command pod that already includes the SAS. Now it is about adding torque through the inline wheels and the classic SAS module which is basically just an inline wheel now.
The confusin part is you can still hit T and "enable" SAS in your craft without a SAS module or command module with it built in. I was sending up mainsail tanks to attach to my fuel depot and when docking them I kept getting roll and drift when translating with my RCS. This is because although I had plenty of torque, 4 inline wheels, I had no command pod or SAS enabled module. So I could use the torque during maneuvers but not utilize it for stability. As soon as I added the old large ASAS wheel, it gave my craft SAS to now use all of than torque for active stability. The button still lit up white with SAS even before it was truly enabled which was very annoying and confusing.
TL;DR: ASAS is gone , there is only SAS and torque wheels.
The confusin part is you can still hit T and "enable" SAS in your craft without a SAS module or command module with it built in. I was sending up mainsail tanks to attach to my fuel depot and when docking them I kept getting roll and drift when translating with my RCS. This is because although I had plenty of torque, 4 inline wheels, I had no command pod or SAS enabled module. So I could use the torque during maneuvers but not utilize it for stability. As soon as I added the old large ASAS wheel, it gave my craft SAS to now use all of than torque for active stability. The button still lit up white with SAS even before it was truly enabled which was very annoying and confusing.
TL;DR: ASAS is gone , there is only SAS and torque wheels.
HNNNNGGGNNNNGHHHHHHHHH
This sh!t is driving me insane since the new patch went live. In the previous patch I could use my own Stack Quad Coupler (I made with 3 Bi Coupler) with 4 Atomic Engines as the last step in my giant rocket. They would perfectly eject the second Quad Coupler with 4 Decouplers and i could fly off in space.
Now when I do the same with the games own Quad Coupler all my rockets (sometimes 2-3 will fall off) will simply fall off because there is some sort of explosion when the engines activate. Its really really frustrating when it worked so well in the last patch
This sh!t is driving me insane since the new patch went live. In the previous patch I could use my own Stack Quad Coupler (I made with 3 Bi Coupler) with 4 Atomic Engines as the last step in my giant rocket. They would perfectly eject the second Quad Coupler with 4 Decouplers and i could fly off in space.
Now when I do the same with the games own Quad Coupler all my rockets (sometimes 2-3 will fall off) will simply fall off because there is some sort of explosion when the engines activate. Its really really frustrating when it worked so well in the last patch
My favorite rocket stopped working in 0.21 so I spent a couple of hours in the night building me a new one.
Somehow I fucked up so even asparagus staging didn't get it off the ground.
Only after much investigation I noticed I was using skipper engines instead of mainsail. Fucking order of the parts changed or something.
Somehow I fucked up so even asparagus staging didn't get it off the ground.
Only after much investigation I noticed I was using skipper engines instead of mainsail. Fucking order of the parts changed or something.
Haven't noticed any yet BUT the game's shadows got better apparently. Might be the issue? Try lowering the pixel light counts and the other setting (the values for them are 8 and 4 respectively, by default, i think)?
I'll try that. I did notice when I landed on the mun last night in .21 that the shadow stayed on the surface the entire time. It used to appear then fade away, then appear again when you got closer to the surface.
My CPU is kind of old, and KSP is a pretty intensive game for the CPU. I think that may have something to do with it.
Stitch
Member
framerate seems to be the same but i get more lag.
Here's my Fate-X10 prototype colony-ship. Well, a prototype for studying the construction anyway.
The inspiration for the craft is in these pics:
Can't copy the inspiration exactly without mods but that's not the point.
With tweaking, i could probably get this thing to orbit (as it is, it goes pretty high, it is surprisingly sturdy) but it ain't easy, the thing rotates slowly on its Z axis (i think, top-bottom axis anyway), and i can't stop it easily. Probably needs more reaction wheels. Or it is inherent due to the bottom's uneven construction.
The bottom engine cluster is uneven since there is no part for combining 4 large engines/tanks (attached 2 to the "base" part, and 1 to another part, and then used a 2x2 plate part on top of the tank cluster as a base for the rest of the rocket).
Also, i'm not sure i can add any more fuel to it and have reasonable payload. Other issues as well. EDIT this prototype does actually have some booster rockets, the colony-ship proper would be true SSTO though without return capability.
I reckon i can't actually build this Fate colony-ship without mods at this time. So, Fate-program is on-hold for now.
If you are curious to see how the game looked at the beginning... Scott Manley played version 0.7.3 on his stream the other day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LMHGtHEOvI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LMHGtHEOvI
PjotrStroganov
Member
I just searched for Scott Manley. I saw a penis.
Oh man those days of KSP were...something else. All you could really do is try and get into orbit, but with no map or time warp, you had to sit there for like 20 minutes to see if you actually completed an orbit.
I stopped playing around .10 I think. It was whenever they were asking for a $7 donation, but you could still play the game for free. Maybe it was before that. I bought it right before 0.17, and having that map view was amazing.
It's funny I did the same thing (not sure if the same versions but I took a break)... I remember trying the first free version and finding it funny and then completely forgetting about it. Then I saw an article about it like a year later and realized that it was becoming a real thing lol. Bought it on the spot and played ever since.
0.21.1 is out! It fixes some issues with the SAS, making it better at keeping attitude. There's some other more minor fixes too. Downloading!
No, it's pretty much the same as it was in 0.20 for me. Just put together a 250ish part ship in orbit by docking the pieces together and had about the same amount of slowdown as before. I have a fairly old machine too (Phenom X4 965 @ 3.6GHz w/ Nvidia 550Ti).
After .21.1 was released it is running a little better on my machine. When I upgraded to .21 the framerate dropped by a lot on my machine. I tried lowering shadows and pixel light count, but that didn't seem to help with anything. As of now it seems to be running like it was in .20, except now if I rotate the camera my FPS goes down by quite a bit for a few seconds.
I have a fairly old CPU, and I plan on upgrading soon so hopefully that will fix any problems.
Oh man, I'm loving the stability introduced in 0.21 (and the new stock parts). This is my first "viable" high speed plane. I'm going to tweak it a little more and go for SSTO reuse.
Oh yeah, it's been a fun ride since those days (though I personally never managed to orbit back then). Each release has something new and awesome added to make the game more fun.
gutterboy44
Member
Got to work on a new fuel depot in .21. My station, aka 24 Hour Sunoco is chilling out at ~160Km orbit.
Started with two units with tri docking ports on top of the copola module so you can use the top window for a great docking view!
Main body came together nicely
Bring on the Jumbo 64's two at a time. The lifter to bring them up is Big Red Lipstick
Plenty of fluids and electrics
My god, getting this SSTO to dock was exhausting. All of the trial and error of a viable SSTO, then I finally get into orbit with enough fuel for a rendezvous and I realize I only have RCS thrusters on the nose and nothing on the tail. FUUUUUUUUUUU. All of my translation commands just yaw and pitch my plane to shit. I didn't give up though. With just pointing the fucker at the docking port and giving forward thrust I eventually got the ports to touch and the magic magnets of the docking ports eventually pulled the plane in line. Then, I start transferring fuel to my plane for the return leg and I accidentally started to burn the two main engines and almost tore my fuel depot to shreds! I forgot to shut the engine down I was so distracted with the docking. Luckily it was ok and I could head home after correcting my depot orientation again.
Bill Kerman cleared for re-entry
Comin' in hot. You can see KSC off in the distance
Ok, looking good, I got this, I got this. Never tested the landing of it yet, but first time is the charm right?
Good enough. Tail sections and engines are overrated.
Great first 24 hours with .21. Now to try out .21.1
Started with two units with tri docking ports on top of the copola module so you can use the top window for a great docking view!
Main body came together nicely
Bring on the Jumbo 64's two at a time. The lifter to bring them up is Big Red Lipstick
Plenty of fluids and electrics
My god, getting this SSTO to dock was exhausting. All of the trial and error of a viable SSTO, then I finally get into orbit with enough fuel for a rendezvous and I realize I only have RCS thrusters on the nose and nothing on the tail. FUUUUUUUUUUU. All of my translation commands just yaw and pitch my plane to shit. I didn't give up though. With just pointing the fucker at the docking port and giving forward thrust I eventually got the ports to touch and the magic magnets of the docking ports eventually pulled the plane in line. Then, I start transferring fuel to my plane for the return leg and I accidentally started to burn the two main engines and almost tore my fuel depot to shreds! I forgot to shut the engine down I was so distracted with the docking. Luckily it was ok and I could head home after correcting my depot orientation again.
Bill Kerman cleared for re-entry
Comin' in hot. You can see KSC off in the distance
Ok, looking good, I got this, I got this. Never tested the landing of it yet, but first time is the charm right?
Good enough. Tail sections and engines are overrated.
Great first 24 hours with .21. Now to try out .21.1
Before .21 I could not fly a plane at all. But with the new stabilization I was finally able to fly around Kerbin for a bit without flying out of control. I also landed on the run way twice today after flying around for a while, which is a first. Next up is a SSTO, bring it back down and land at KSC.
God damn it I love this game.
God damn it I love this game.
ThreePiMatt
Member
Got my closest to landing on Mun yet. Set up a good elliptical orbit around Kerbin, good trajectory to the Mun, full fuel tanks on my lander stage, and a nice slow capture of Mun's gravity, but I wasn't paying attention and while in orbit of the Mun I let my electrical charge lapse and was left with a dead probe. It'll happen sooner rather than later.
That is probably the most common problem with probes. Put some solar panels on it, bind them to an action key, and right when you get out of the atmosphere open them up.
PjotrStroganov
Member
Or just put some of those flat solars on there. They almost take no room.
@Gutterboy: forgetting that one tiny part. The bane of Kerban cosmonauts!
@Gutterboy: forgetting that one tiny part. The bane of Kerban cosmonauts!
Oh yeah those too. I always forget about the flat solar panels. I always go for the ones that open because I like the animation.
ThreePiMatt
Member
I had some foldy-out panels on there just didn't pay attention to my resources. I guess I'll throw a couple flat ones on there just for the trickle to keep it alive.
It takes a while to get used to a heavy lifter. If you want I can link to a .craft file I made. It is a huge rocket that can fly to Eve, Duna, Dres and Eeloo. I can get a capture with Jool and Moho, but I run out of fuel to get into orbit.
If you want to take a look at it and get some ideas, I'd be more than happy to link it.
ASAS modules are a problem. They're very weak... Reckon i shouldn't use so many of them.
EDIT my "heavylifter" doesn't even have a payload yet, can't figure out engine config that works...
EDIT 5 Mainsails is too much. The thing handles like a truck, once it starts doing something you can't do anything. Ah, well, i'll move on to Titan X4... This time i'll try asparagus staging. EDIT, Actually, no, can't use it for this one...
EDIT Used it anyway. Ended up working pretty well. Probably needs a third stage though. Not sure if the first stage rockets are enough for that AND the payload...
EDIT my "heavylifter" doesn't even have a payload yet, can't figure out engine config that works...
EDIT 5 Mainsails is too much. The thing handles like a truck, once it starts doing something you can't do anything. Ah, well, i'll move on to Titan X4... This time i'll try asparagus staging. EDIT, Actually, no, can't use it for this one...
EDIT Used it anyway. Ended up working pretty well. Probably needs a third stage though. Not sure if the first stage rockets are enough for that AND the payload...
PjotrStroganov
Member
So the the original subassembly loader is defunct and there is a new one with more limited functionality it seems. It's a pain in the ass to have to keep free the root parts to be able to connect them.
Does anyone know why they got rid of the End Flight function? I've just adapted a heavy lifter designed for solar probe launches to a manned mission to Duna, something failed along the way and because End Flight is gone, I have no idea what it is. Whether it's a structural failure or a stage firing too soon, I don't know, because it just exploded suddenly. How do we know what's going wrong now if the End Flight report is absent?
If you press F3 during the flight it should bring up the results screen, allowing you to see what was wrong. You can do it in the middle of any flight, and then continue your flight.
ThreePiMatt
Member
BWAH! I was literally skipping off the surface of the Mun. I was slowly descending, no more than a single Kerbal in height off of the ground, yet every time I feathered my lander engines I'd start ascending again. Then I came down at a slight angle and clipped off two of my landing struts then finally toppled over and asploded.
Make sure you get rid of that horizontal movement! Also while your descending make sure you hit F5 to quicksave. That way if you mess up, you can hold down F9 to go back to your quicksave so you don't have to do the flight all over again.
gutterboy44
Member
Switching over to "soft controls" by hitting Caps Lock is really helpful for those last few meters when landing. Also get used to using the H key for a bit of prograde RCS thrust. Can help cancel out little bits of downward momentum assuming you are pointing vertical as you are landing and your RCS thruster placement isn't bonkers.
Finally progress. My mark 7 Titan prototype can lift 15 tonnes to 500km but i'm not sure it can actually circularize the orbit (and then de-orbit, i try to avoid leaving space junk). Also has wobbling issues, not much but some.
I figure i can make it work with slight tweaking.
EDIT annoying, i have this stuttering issue. Every few seconds the framerate slows a bit for half a second. Sounds like a sound issue... very annoying, didn't have it previously.
I figure i can make it work with slight tweaking.
EDIT annoying, i have this stuttering issue. Every few seconds the framerate slows a bit for half a second. Sounds like a sound issue... very annoying, didn't have it previously.
ThreePiMatt
Member
Success! Now to do it with a dude in tow.
Also, if you guys want to watch great KSP videos, I suggest you checkout TheWinterOwl. He specialize in space planes and he makes amazing designs. Right now he has a series or video where he uses a career mod. He does a new mission in every video where it goes from a simple prop plane flying to 1000m to his latest vide which is a probe around the Mun. He has to manage money and objectives. Really cool.
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheWinterOwl?feature=watch
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheWinterOwl?feature=watch
Pops Maellard
Member
Can't you just destroy space junk from the tracking center..?
...I guess. But de-orbiting them means i don't have to bother with that step.
Haha yeah the landing is tricky. I watched Scott Manley's video that taught me how to land on the Mun. Basically, start lowering your orbit around the Mun to about 5,000. Then point at the Periapsis and fire your rocket. Follow it till it generally points to the exact top of the NavBall. Just slowly control your fall after that. Make sure to land below 10m/s and you should be fine. I broke a landing gear in my last landing though... lol