Kerbal Space Program.

The One Doctor

Just got back into this, building a sensible shuttle. i.e, no asymmetric thrust and a lot of payload. Essentially I've build a spaceplane that's launched vertically using two rockets. It's surprisingly efficient (and reliable) compared to a standard rocket launch. I got a munar lander/rover + transfer stage into orbit with 750ms dV left, and the transfer stage had enough fuel to get to the Mun and land.

And then the lander/rover fell over and broke all the solar panels. Oh well!

The One Doctor

The sensible shuttle turned out to be too easy, so Ive come up with a spaceplane that has a detachable cargo bay. It's fun testing it, but I really doubt it'll get into orbit. FAR has reintriduced aerodynamic failures and it's proving tough to get beyond Mach 3. Any suggestions? I've already stapped on SRBs but it's not really helping. Fun watching the plane bend from the aero forces .

b757

Took the plunge last week and got his game.

Very good so far, gets very frustrating sometimes.

andy_g

b757 wrote: »

Took the plunge last week and got his game.

Very good so far, gets very frustrating sometimes.

Frustrating and addictive :P

IRLConor

Pro-tip: Don't spend hours getting all the way to Eeloo and find out you didn't have a communications device to send back all that precious science!

The One Doctor

IRLConor wrote: »

Pro-tip: Don't spend hours getting all the way to Eeloo and find out you didn't have a communications device to send back all that precious science!

Or spending slightly fewer hours getting to Duna to find out that 0.24.2 has broken the Kethane mod, leaving Bill stranded.

Akrasia

Version 1.0 was released on Monday

After 4.5 years in early access, KSP is officially launched as a full retail game.

I've only managed to play it for an hour since the release, but there are big changes to the aerodynamics and there are atmosheric heating effects on re-entry which means you need to think carefully about re-entry as well as just getting your rocket into space.

For people who are into designing and building aircraft, and space planes the game has just gotten much better now that the aerodynamics more accurately models the lift and drag effects of the various parts and how they affect stability. The game deliberately simplifies some of these models to avoid realism getting in the way of fun, but you can be guaranteed that there are modders out there right now turning off some of these background assists to make it more of a challenge (if that's what you like)

The designing and building aspect of the game is a big improvement over earlier pre .90 versions of the game, the ability to fine tune the position of the various components much reduces some of the frustrating aspects of trying to get a part to connect on to somewhere in just the right way.

I'm playing it on a bog standard entry level laptop (seriously, it's a Celeron 1000m with 4gb of ram and basic intel onboard graphhics) and it's working fine for me, it's actually faster than it was in the previous versions, so they have done a good job on plugging up some memory leaks and optimising the code to reduce the draw on the CPU

I started from scratch with a new career and the contracts system is much better than the earlier versions. You don't have to select your contracts at the start, the game automatically assigns you appropriate and easily achievable contracts early on, but I presume later when some of the buildings are upgraded you'll have a wider choice of contracts to complete.

I'm looking forward to attempting some landings on the other planets with their varied atmospheres and how these will affect the design of the landers

andy_g

Havent been able to play in ages so might give the new version a try I love as a alpha and beta tester i get the game free

See you in space Kerbalnaughts.

seamus

I hadn't played for a long time till .9 came out, don't get a lot of gaming time.

Really liked 0.9, but I did find the contracts system a little fiddly and occasionally unclear. Delighted to hear about re-entry, always thought that was badly missing.

One thing I've always thought should be included is a longer set of training missions - perhaps a whole set of training contracts that guides you through orbital docking, Mun landings, etc.

iggyigauna89

Could definitely use a guide for orbital docking! No matter how many times I watch that Scott Manley tutorial on youtube I can never seem to execute it!

seamus

Playing it right now, there's a tutorial for getting into alignment and docking!

BeardySi

Must investigate!!! I've dipped in and out of this since the early stages so it's great to see it finally get a full release!

Akrasia

There's so much stuff I'm really looking forward to doing with version 1.0. Will probably keep me going for years

Turtwig

Back into this after long a hiatus. (Back into gaming actually.)

Oh how I still love this. As mentioned the re-entry thing is great. Overall, considered I purchased this as an early access whatever. I'm delighted to see the project come to full fruition. Next step now is to get the NASA/ESA and similar mods. Install it in primary schools across the country and get kids building awesome fcking rockets! We'll have our own space program eventually! (Sure with the amount that was spent on the bailouts, we could made a LEO.)

Akrasia

The re-entry heating is pretty unforgiving!

I was playing career at the weekend and managed to bodge myself to the mun, got there but had only 16 seconds of fuel left to get back to Kerbin. After many failed attempts (bless you F9!) I managed to get myself into an elliptical orbit with a slingshot from the Mun and from highly elliptical orbit, it takes hardly any fuel to fall directly into Kerbin with a burn at the Apoapsis.

Unfortunately, this left me with a re-entry speed of over 3500m/s and my little capsule exploded into a billion pieces on re-entry (The heatshields, they do nothing!")

I F9d it again and deployed the parachute before re-entering the atmosphere and this managed to slow down the capsule before detonation and Valentina Kerman touched down in the desert alive and well.

It's not particularly realistic that the parachutes didn't burn up on re-entry, or get torn off from the force of slowing down the capsule from such a high speed, but it kept her alive god dammit.

BeardySi

Aaah the joys of building controllable rockets without all the parts I've come to rely on! Poor old Jeb just can't get enough spinning and pinwheeling...


edit: So it seems the atmospheric model is much improved and now we've got to fly a more realistic ascent profile rather than the old 45deg @ 10k gravity turn that was the norm for 0.x versions.

Back to flight school for me so!

Akrasia

Treadhead wrote: »

Aaah the joys of building controllable rockets without all the parts I've come to rely on! Poor old Jeb just can't get enough spinning and pinwheeling...


edit: So it seems the atmospheric model is much improved and now we've got to fly a more realistic ascent profile rather than the old 45deg @ 10k gravity turn that was the norm for 0.x versions.

Back to flight school for me so!

Yeah, it's very different. Also, the SAS tends to wobble the rocket a lot, so I've been flying manually, but I noticed that if you have multiple gimballed engines on one stage, it can confuse the SAS, so I've learned to limit thrust vectoring to the central engine only and lock the gimbals on radial engines (or use engines without thrust vectoring)

I've kept to the 200m/s speed limit below 10,000 metres as before though as this seems to be more fuel efficient (although I haven't got any figures to back this up.

iggyigauna89

Akrasia wrote: »

I've kept to the 200m/s speed limit below 10,000 metres as before though as this seems to be more fuel efficient (although I haven't got any figures to back this up.

I've been doing this too, keeping it between 150 m/s and 200 m/s below 10,000m then turning to 45 degrees and giving it full throttle until my apoapsis is at 80-90km.

I find it the easiest way to get to a stable orbit with a reasonable amount of fuel.

andy_g

Just started playing career mode, have to say i love it but miss my usual part heating effect are also really good.

Heat shields seem to work well when entering at the right angle have learned the hard way.

What does everyone think of the contracts?

Akrasia

andy_g wrote: »

Just started playing career mode, have to say i love it but miss my usual part heating effect are also really good.

Heat shields seem to work well when entering at the right angle have learned the hard way.

What does everyone think of the contracts?

I've just spent an hour trying to get a satellite into orbit and when I exactly matched the orbit I was given, it never marked as complete, I think I sent it orbiting around in the wrong direction...
Bastards... but now I get to send another satellite into orbit in the correct direction and possibly see a spectacular space crash

andy_g

Im still doing sub orbital stuff not enough power or fuel as im still working to the 18T limit

Turtwig

Why is that I keep forgetting solar panels. Every. Fcking. Time!:mad:

andy_g

Turtwig wrote: »

Why is that I keep forgetting solar panels. Every. Fcking. Time!:mad:

dont forget the solar panels

Akrasia

Sometimes solar panels aren't enough

I was trying to launch an ultra light weight satelite so I thought I could skip the battery and rely solely on a couple of solar panels, but it kept running out of juice every time it went into the shadow of Kerbin and I kept missing my manouver nodes.

"gah!" I said.

BeardySi

*le sigh*

Unlocked patched conics so I could do me some rescue missions. Right click on orbit - no maneuver nodes? I guess they need to be ubnlocked or requite a level 2 pilot or something - Oh well... I spend ages getting the hang of making nice intercepts without them.

Do a few successful ones, am smug.

As I'm deorbiting my latest I accidentally left click on the orbit and up comes a maneuver node.... *facepalm*

On the other hand, I rather like the new warp to point option...

Akrasia

yeah, that's a really useful function. Be careful with it though, sometimes it misbehaves and you just warp past your node.

I've just come across a brilliant little mod manager

https://github.com/KSP-CKAN/CKAN/releases/tag/v1.6.16
CKAN lets you install or remove or disable almost any mod from within a tidy little window, and it automatically updates them and it checks for conflicts and warns you if they might make your game unstable.

Turtwig

And the award for most stupid space engineer goes to...

Akrasia

is that a parachute over the crew hatch?
Yeah, maybe not such a good idea

Yesterday I was doing a contract to rescue a guy from orbit and it was all going swimmingly until re-entry when I detached everything from the command module and was orienting for re-entry when suddenly I ran out of power because I had left the SAS turned on while I warped back to Kerbin

I panicked thinking I was going to burn up in re-entry and released the parachute to slow myself down which instantly burnt off resulting in a high speed impact with the ocean.

Maybe Danfred Kerman should have taken his chances with the infinite vacuum of space.

BeardySi

It's an RCS thruster over the hatch isn't it?

Oh for a solar panel! I've found that SAS only drains the battery when it's set to maintain pro or retrograde (and probably higher level functions I'm guessing my pilots don't have access to yet) - position hold doesn't seem to be a drain.


On the subject of dead Kerbals, do the original orange four respawn if they die? I know they did in earlier versions but I don't particularly want to kill off Jeb to find out!

Turtwig

Treadhead wrote: »

It's an RCS thruster over the hatch isn't it?

Oh for a solar panel! I've found that SAS only drains the battery when it's set to maintain pro or retrograde (and probably higher level functions I'm guessing my pilots don't have access to yet) - position hold doesn't seem to be a drain.


On the subject of dead Kerbals, do the original orange four respawn if they die? I know they did in earlier versions but I don't particularly want to kill off Jeb to find out!

They respawn after some time but they lose all their skills and experience. Believe me once you get used to a level 4 pilot it's very hard to readjust to aligning everything yourself.

Note to self: Not needing a parachute for a moon landing does not mean you won't need a parachute for the entire mission. Suffice, poor Bill, Bob, Jeb and Valentine were in need of a rescue mission because they can't attempt re-entry. There's a bit of a hiccup though, even though their orbit was a very wide one, they are on a return back to Kerbin. I needed to figure out how to intercept that orbit and save them. So I did exactly that. Chuffed I was. Only I was out of fuel. Now five kerbins needed rescuing and although I had them on an orbit around Kerbin, it was a decaying orbit. Alas, they were fcked.

I really really, don't understand why I wasn't more generous with the fuel on my rescue ship. Yet, another Kerbal Space Program failed rescue mission for the history books.

Also Andy this is partially your fault. Minimal parts rockets you said. Well, I hope you're happy now!

Actually it wasn't a total failure. Managed to nab this lovely shot.

Akrasia wrote: »

is that a parachute over the crew hatch?
Yeah, maybe not such a good idea

Yesterday I was doing a contract to rescue a guy from orbit and it was all going swimmingly until re-entry when I detached everything from the command module and was orienting for re-entry when suddenly I ran out of power because I had left the SAS turned on while I warped back to Kerbin

RCS Thrusters.

Thanks to my solar panel amnesia I constantly disable the electrics before warping time/ abandoning flight control. It really will spare you some grief if you can get into the habit of it. Right click all the modules that drain juice and just click the arrow thingy beside their meter(s). I think you bind it to group actions too. I don't bother though, clicking's handy enough and a great way to convince myself I've done it. Because. Fck. Solar Panels! :mad: