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Kerbal Madness


EnigmaGrey

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I keep using rockets which although fun means I have severely neglected re-usable shuttles. Has anyone got any tips on how to use them?

Lots of parachutes is key.

 

unfortunately, that's only half the truth.

I had a very simple setup, one RT10 with three radial parachutes, one decoupler and one cockpit with another parachute. Setup the thing to decouple the RT10 together with opening the radial parachutes.

Everything deployed fine, but after reclaiming the cockpit, the RT10 was gone, too. Probably been deleted from the game as being "debris" below a certain altitude threshold.

This might have been fine without paying money for it, but it sucks <insert random animal> balls in career mode now :-(

 

 

 

Put a probe core on it. Then it's tagged and it's not deleted :)

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Lots of parachutes is key.

unfortunately, that's only half the truth.

It's also a little bit of a white lie . . . no one survived those parachutes opening. ;)

But done right, it's effective to save a rocket. Looking forward to messing around with contracts/career mode.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 months later...

I'm loving the contracts. I've found that when you're building a ship designed exclusively to test components you can come up with some pretty interesting and unique designs.
 
Plus, the new aerospace parts are well cool.

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At the moment I am attaching a room wing to my sopace station core where kerbals can live in, I've finally figured out how to rendevouz! atleast, my  way seems to work pretty well.

I basically just launch, make an orbit around kerbin, set my orbit so it comes close to the space station, and throttle to it a bit, but not too much, and then, profit!

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I'm loving the contracts. I've found that when you're building a ship designed exclusively to test components you can come up with some pretty interesting and unique designs.

 

Plus, the new aerospace parts are well cool.

I know right ! I've been trying to fulfill as many contracts as I reasonnably can in one flight to save some costs, I often end up with some weird staging and funny design !

And yeah, I never played as much with the spaceplane hangar as I do now ^^

 

 

At the moment I am attaching a room wing to my sopace station core where kerbals can live in, I've finally figured out how to rendevouz! atleast, my  way seems to work pretty well.

I basically just launch, make an orbit around kerbin, set my orbit so it comes close to the space station, and throttle to it a bit, but not too much, and then, profit!

I figured another technique to rendez-vous ! Those "save xxxxxx kerbal from kerbin's orbit" missions helped me with rendez-vous manoeuvre, even tho I generally finish the last hunded meters with the lonely kerbal's jetpack, I'm pretty sure I'll be able to do it with ships when I've better parts for control.

The idea is to set your orbit on the object's orbit you want to "rendez-vous" with, and check the intersect points. If the object is behind you at the intersect point, you raise your Apoapsis further than the object's Apoapsis ; If the object is in front of you at the intersect point, you lower your Periapsis under the object's periapsis, you should be way closer on your next turn since the time it takes to achieve a full revolution will be longer(raising)/shorter(lowering) than the object's one, allowing him(raising)/you(lowering) to catch up for the next revolution. You adjust until the intersect point brings you close enough from the object and then play with prograde/retrograde manoeuvres or -RCS thrusters if you have, that's what I lack right now- before you reach the intersect, and hop! you have a rendez-vous !

Edit : It's easier to use your technique from Kerbin, but if you have to "rendez-vous" somewhere else you need to be able to catch the object's orbit from a none stationnary departure and a more random arrival.

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Hate those save kerbal from kerbin's orbit missions... I find it a tad silly that they are available in the first place despite the fact that I've not lost any Kerbals in orbit, so I've just turned it off.

Was surprised to have one on day one, after completing a few of the early contracts.

Poor lil' guy is just goin' to have to die. *Watches solid-state rocket leave the solar system*

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Hate those save kerbal from kerbin's orbit missions... I find it a tad silly that they are available in the first place despite the fact that I've not lost any Kerbals in orbit, so I've just turned it off.

 

I really like those missions (once I learned how to do them!). They pay pretty well and once you've got your technique down they're not too bad. Plus - free Kerbal. Of course, that isn't too important right now but I hear that the plans are for Kerbals to have a recruitment cost in the future.

 

I would assume they are there from rival space programs... invisible rival space programs.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I did play KSP, but after realizing that my super moon rocket designs, utilizing the giant orange fuel tanks, that I poured hours into, did not have the mass to energy ratio that I was expecting, and only reached the upper atmosphere, that I ceased from playing, albeit copying a polar cruise liner (read:stole) and making a solar plane that didn't work, and realizing that I had no idea what the angles for intersecting the moons orbit without ending halfway between or slamming/slingshotting around the moon, that I ceased and desisted from playing such a great game.

 

(TL;DR After realizing my gross naivety and mass design failure and lack of knowledge on correct moon landing angles orbits what-have-you, I stopped playing KSP.)

 

I must re-update it after the Beast gets home from it's Friendly Neighbourhood computer fixers

(user corruption, gaah)

 

Incidentally, the also built it for me, to my specifications, and found my knowledge of computers at 11 (now 13)

above average, so they (jokingly,of course but not really) offered me a saturday job there! (when I'm older obviously.)

 

Yay.

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snip

You probably missed the firt rule of a succesful KSP mission : Moar boosters !

Also, you might want to take a look at the mod called KSP engineer redux, it gives you valuable information on your ship when you build it, including delta V which is basically the measure of "how far you can take your ship based on a thrust / weight calculation".

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Ok time to join this thread properly and add some pics

 

pvNgQZd.jpg

 

This is my attempt at creating a Space Station that is capable of landing back on Earth - note the 4 towers at the top with parachutes - the aim is to land it on the bottom 4 towers. It is capable of having two smallish craft dock with it (hopefully as I have yet to complete an orbital rendezvous without exploding everything everywhere) as well as do lots of sciencey experiments in space. It was supposed to go into an Equatorial orbit but sadly the rocket was (unsuprisingly) hideously unbalanced  and ended up in a Polar orbit. Still I'm kinda proud of it.

 

Now I just got to figure out how to keep it up there and get Jeb down. My experiments with a reusable SSTO craft have been explosively bad.

 

6nYNFBB.jpg

 

edit:- Jeb has been up there alone for several months now - thankfully he had lots of rations and he has an enviable Satellite coverage (I've put probes and Sats in and on Kerbol, Mun, Minimus and Eve) but no company as yet. I have this mental image of the first kerbol in an SSTO getting to the Station to find a half crazed Kerbol talking to himself.

 

Also if anyone can post some SSTO designs I'd be grateful

Edited by Keepbro
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I'll post pics sometime soon, but I've got a great space station set up now.

Basically, every part is surrounded by 2 monoprop tanks and 3 RCS thrusters from B9 on each side, with a Clampotron on the top.

This makes the station completely modular and de- and reattachable.

Using this design idea I also built a "Mun Taxi" which can take up to 35 tons of mass easily from Kerbin to Mun orbit. So with about a dozen trips I moved my station from a high Kerbin orbit to a 1000 km Mun orbit.

Combined with Station Science mod I can now move the station around FOR THE SCIENCE!

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Here's a Lander I'm currently working on

 

- TarsusLander_zps34fed112.jpg

 

The bottom part is just a decoupler, which will come off.

 

Here's the internals -

 

TarsusLanderInternals_zpsf8e39790.jpg

 

Science equipment, small energy package and capacitors for emergency power. All the science equipment would be tied to action groups because there would be no way to click on them once the lander is complete. This thing is very lightweight at 0.15 so its ideal for budget launches in career mode. Course the downside is that it has a limited lifespan on the surface and I'm against putting solar panels on this thing, to keep the weight down and keep it 'neat' looking, although I'll have to experiment with power consumption as those science equipment will be power hungry.

 

It's not completely finished yet; still deciding on its descent package. There isn't any room for fuel of any kind, other than small quantities of RCS fuel and the underbelly could fit some RCS thrusters, leaving its descent with little room for error. The other option is the more expensive and heavier skycrane which negates the lander needing any fuel or thrusters of any kind.

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