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Kerbal Space Program 1.1 and beyond!
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20-04-2016 12:45am#1
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Just spent 90 mins with it myself, definitely feels more smooth but had a couple of jitters with a jet wobbling through the surface of the runway before it even took off. It feels good though, nice to have the game running so much more smoothly, can't wait to try building some gigantic monstrosity in Sandbox
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Does the tutorial do more than leave you looking like this yet?
Because I know I should love this game but I never found myself picking it up a second time after being left flailing on my own try to reach Mun.
Um, if I recall correctly the tutorials in 1.0 with the exception of the orbital rendezvous and docking one weren't that bad. The rendezvous one could have been better imo but then again even NASA failed at rendezvous the first few times. It's just not that easy because in Space everything is intuitively different to how we perceive them down here. 1.1 has added an internal wikipedia, KSPedia you can browse while playing that has rather nice illustrations on it. I'll try out the tutorials before the week is out to see if anything has changed. One thing I do remember is in1.05 the moon return tutorial mission was made rather difficult by the parachutes full deployment altitude being set to 500m. Their default was changed to 1,000 but in the tutorial they never changed it. Meaning that unless you manually changed them yourself or had the almost perfect return trajectory your craft crashed into the surface.pablomakaveli wrote: »I hadnt played it for a year so fired it up last night. I'm not liking the fact that the parachutes can be destroyed. Think I need to try the tutorials again.
Parachutes have speed ratings, generally around 260 m/s. You can deploy drogues that have max speed rating of around 600 to get around this. Keeping your final return stage as light as possible definitely helps too!
Drogues aren't available in career mode though until quite a bit of science has been researched. You don't really need them either unless you're landing on a planet other than Kerbin but they do help make things easier for Kerbin returns.
One thing I found useful in early career was to open the service bay once it had passed through the extreme heat of air friction. This adds a bit more drag and slows you down even more. Likewise, you can modifiy the reentry stage of your design to be as a drag inducing as possible. The balance here of course is that for launch you want to be as drag free as possible. Hence, the service bays, keep them closed at launch. Open after deadliest part of reentry. Then wait until your surface speed has dropped enough for the parachutes to be safe to deploy.
Most important thing though is before attempting final re-entry bleed off as much energy from your orbit as possible i.e if you're returning from the Mun use the edges of Kerbins atmosphere to provide free aerobrakes. Use this to drop your orbital speed as much as possible before going in for the final descent. The lower your apoapsis is before making that final descent the less speed you'll have to shed to deploy a chute.0 -
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Been working my way through the tutorials. They're a good deal better than previously. They could still be improved upon imo. It's disappointing that the moon landing one doesn't mention you can check your actual altitude by reading the radar altitude meter in your command pod IVA. That is invaluable if you want to know how close you are to the ground before your crafts lights/shadows indicate proximity. Also disappointing that the return from Mun tutorial has you use a drogue. I'm no math wiz but unless they changed when the science of drogues unlocked in career mode you need over 3,000 points of science. It is highly unlikely a person's first return from the Mun in career will have a craft with drogues.
Zillah, I think that face should be far less likely but if you just follow the Scott Manley stuff it should be even less likely.
Edit: I should warn that Scott Manleys tutorials pre 1.05 are now outdated in some parts. The core concepts remain similar and if I do recall correctly he does state how things should likely be done for future updates. Either way his channel is highly recommended.
Edit edit: Alas, the docking tutorial is completely unchanged and very very poor.
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I had a go at it last week. It's surprisingly difficult!
What I love about Kerbal is the real world physics, compared to regular video games. Take The Witcher for example. I see an enemy coming towards me and I can roll out of the way knowing that every time I hit the roll button I will head in the same direction, speed, distance and dodge anything in my way.
With KBS there are so many variables involved in movement. It's constantly changing. And once you break orbit you're dealing with forces which are atypical for the average human.
Quill18's videos are very entertaining. He breaks out the calculator and works out how much fuel he needs to bring on a trip based on the mass of the ship, the distance traveled and the force of gravity (9.8 N/kg).
I think I need to take this approach in future and start actually paying attention to all of the numbers at my disposal. It is a simulator after all.
I regret doing pass Leaving Cert physics now! 0 -
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Kerbal has mods to suits all tastes but I would strongly recommend those new to the game and intent on doing career (strongly recommend starting the game in career before attempting sandbox and being overwhelmed by the amount of parts) mode long term use a sheet of paper or the craft notes (under its title in VAB) to make notes. For example when I'd acquire a new main stage engine I'd immediately start testing it under various conditions and reverting the flight then making notes. How many fuel tanks it can lift, how fast does it ascend, how much it can manoeuvre pitch and yaw, how heavy is it when using a parachute to slow down, how effective are multiple chutes etc.
That just helps make the illusion of being part of real space agency with test flights all the more real. The best part of Kerbal is figuring out what works and what doesn't. Sub assemblies are your friend. 0 -
Kerbal has mods to suits all tastes but I would strongly recommend those new to the game and intent on doing career mode use a sheet of paper or the craft notes (under its title in VAB) to make notes. For example when I'd acquire a new main stage engine I'd immediately start testing it under various conditions and reverting the flight then making notes. How many fuel tanks it can lift, how fast does it ascend, how much it can manoeuvre pitch and yaw, how heavy is it when using a parachute to slow down, how effective are multiple chutes etc.
That just helps make the illusion of being part of real space agency with test flights all the more real. The best part of Kerbal is figuring out what works and what doesn't. Sub assemblies are your friend.
I never went quite to those lengths, but it was very satisfying to go from "This is my rocket for getting a guy to the moon" to "Hey wait a minute, this rocket that gets a guy to the Mun can also lift X tons to orbit or Y tons to Duna." Which culminates in having multiple rocket sub-assemblies which I've rated for payload mass to various orbits. The most satisfying nerdery the gaming world has yet to provide me.0 -
Yeah I was bit too immersive.
. Just a sub assembly notes on DV would definitely suffice.
One of my favorite moments in this game was when I covered a munar rescue, Munar temp and Eva observations, munar satellite reposition, new Minmus satellite deployment and Duna satellite deployment contract from the one launch. I launched my craft, split it up so that one part did the munar contracts, while the other headed to minmus. Split the munar craft again so that the rescued kerbal could perform the observations and head home. Rejoined the Minmus and Mun craft to use their combined fuel to reach Duna and deploy the last satelitte. Then crashed the remainder into Duna. (I like to keep Debris to a minimum). It was a super nerdy moment when everything was accomplished. An unbelievable feeling of achievement I'd rarely ever got from a video game. That's one thing kerbal does really well imo, provides you with a real sense of accomplishment and triumph.0 -
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I'll never forget the time I got the perfect polar munar return trajectory for a (hopefully) nice aerobraking at about 48,000m. Enabled time warp.. then BOOM! Explosions all over the place. Turned out my return "orbit" actually went through the surface of the Mun first. Was so focused on getting that Kerbin Periapsis down I forgot that poor Jeb and Bob weren't able to travel through solid rock at over 800 m/s. 0
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I must get back into this its been a long while since I played it.
Scott Manley is very good and what I like is he actually knows his stuff when it comes to space exploration, lot of interesting facts and that, I think he actually works in the field or related to it.
Some really great mods out there too, but must give vanilla a go now with the update.
I recently pick up one of these going cheap secondhand so want to try have a go of flying rockets with it, my first attempt was dire, I think the last time I used a joystick it was connected to commodore64.
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FAILSAFE 00 wrote: »One step at a time
NO!
I finished up for the night after that.
Indeed, baby steps, baby steps. Such is how so many of the kerbal space agency rescue missions (and rescue of those rescue missions) are born. Congrats on the succesful landing though.
On one of my earliest munar landing, I was so conscious about the fuel for a return home I landed really badly on a top heavy craft. (KSC described it as an advanced lithobraking manouvre.) No worries, used Jeb to push the craft towards a bit of a hill on the crater. Rolled the craft, pulsed the engine at 1% thrust, slowly climbing the hill, then near the peak I hit full thrust and launched into space!
These days I just place a service bay near the bottom that way if you land badly the action of opening the doors against the ground can tilt the craft upwards a bit. See? Service bays doors are super useful they help reorientate a badly landed craft and they can also be used to induce aerobraking drag on reentry.cruizer101 wrote: »Scott Manley is very good and what I like is he actually knows his stuff when it comes to space exploration, lot of interesting facts and that, I think he actually works in the field or related to it.
He's brilliant! He studied astrophysics but he's a programmer for Apple. So he might also be a bit evil.0 -
To be fair to Scott, he works for a company that Apple bought, I don't think he'd much say in the matter :P
As for that Joystick - I tried my own HOTAS for KSP, it was "not better" for everything except throttle control, but you may feel different 0 -
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This is one of those games where hindsight truly does slaughter you. Had spent a considerable time painstakingly setting up a really nice polar encounter with the Duna to deploy a polar satellite. Arrived there to discover it was exactly 179° degrees off inclination. Fckkkkkk!
Worst part is I would have had the necessary DV to correct in an orange rockomax tank but I decided to leave it in burn up on Kerbins atmosphere because there was no way I was going to need it. 0 -
Been a long long while since I've let this happen to me.
The 3 tourists inside are gonna be on Minmus a lot longer than they'd anticipated.
Kichael Kay Kerman was dissatisfied that no nukes were used on an impact asteroid.(Nuclear engines were though. 1 was all that was necessary but Teddon wanted 4 on his ship so he could catch his soaps. He wasn't too pleased about the prospect of 20 minute burns.)0 -
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f_DPrSEOEo
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