General Kerbal Discussion
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@AyGeePlus said in General Kerbal Discussion:
Seems like you need to change engines.
Well fucking duh. Isn't that exactly what I posted last night? Sheesh.
Sorry I didn't anticipate getting grilled over this or I would have made more screenshots.
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Why are you using the Panther anyway? I don't have the tech tree in front of me but surely you have the whiplash/aerospike/rapier or something?
(I talk like I know what I'm doing but my 'planes' in career mode have a single landing gear towards the front, and take off using a solid rocket booster. They fly ok once they're up, but with the potato field runway and no retractable landing gear my options are limited. Well, I say that, but it's so much easier than messing about with wheels and getting enough rotation force to nose-up I might just keep using the flea as a launch booster.)
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@AyGeePlus said in General Kerbal Discussion:
@blakeyrat said in General Kerbal Discussion:
I can't get anything with a Panther much over 1100 m/s
Cruising at Mach 3 is pretty good for a turbofan, I think. The panther produces essentially zero thrust at that speed.
Seems like you need to change engines.
The only functional 1.0+ SSTOs I've made use Whiplashes, Rapiers, or a combination of the two. Rapiers have relatively horrible fuel economy, but they keep pushing until 30km and 1300m/s.
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@Kian said in General Kerbal Discussion:
I'm curious about how the wing profiles impact speed, lift and maneuverability. I have only unlocked the most basic parts so far, so I can't really test. My planes have a ceiling of like 5 to 7 km, and fly at 200 m/s.
If you're making an SSTO, minimizing drag cross-section makes a HUGE difference. The drawback is that you then have a craft that isn't very maneuverable and has a high stall speed. It seems like there is no one-size-fits-all solution for aircraft and you're forced into designing several one trick ponies.
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I wish you could see on the wiki the thrust multiplier graphs for different air-breathing engines. In retrospect it should be obvious that something like the Panther has a top speed because of aerodynamic constraints. Without reaction mass I don't think you can go faster than your exhaust velocity because of momentum.
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@Groaner said in General Kerbal Discussion:
It seems like there is no one-size-fits-all solution for aircraft and you're forced into designing several one trick ponies.
I mean, does this bother you? Were you expecting to just build The One Plane To Rule Them All?
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@AyGeePlus said in General Kerbal Discussion:
Why are you using the Panther anyway?
Because it's the "best" (in sense of supersonic flight-- not economy) jet engine I have.
@AyGeePlus said in General Kerbal Discussion:
don't have the tech tree in front of me but surely you have the whiplash/aerospike/rapier or something?
Not until I get another 250 or so science to unlock them.
And even then I'm pretty sure the RAPIER takes another tech tree unlock on top of that.
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@AyGeePlus said in General Kerbal Discussion:
@Groaner said in General Kerbal Discussion:
It seems like there is no one-size-fits-all solution for aircraft and you're forced into designing several one trick ponies.
I mean, does this bother you? Were you expecting to just build The One Plane To Rule Them All?
Yes! I want a plane that has a 30m/s stall speed, VTOL, ISRU, turbofan cruising Isp, and at least 4km/s Δv on a full tank with a nuclear engine...
Although it is kind of cool to have to build supporting infrastructure for each of the one trick ponies.
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@Groaner From my dicking around with 1.0, I seem to recall that even if you can get a spaceplane into orbit, building one that can also de-orbit was nearly impossible. (They'd burn-up on re-entry.) Specialization is one thing, but a plane that can get into orbit but not come back, that's just stupid.
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@blakeyrat I wish you could put ablation tiles on things. I have wings! They're big and flat! Take some tiles off the heatshield and put them on the wings!
I should savehack up a spaceplane in orbit and see if I can de-orbit it. It's probably tricky but I know they tweaked re-entry heating at least once since 1.0. I mean, in theory you just kill your horizontal velocity and drop+suicide burn, but it would be nice to be able to do without infinite fuel on.
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@AyGeePlus The new 10m inflatable heatshield might make it possible, but the plane'll have to have a dead-flat front (or ejectable nose code I guess) to install it which will destroy the aerodynamics.
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@blakeyrat said in General Kerbal Discussion:
@Groaner From my dicking around with 1.0, I seem to recall that even if you can get a spaceplane into orbit, building one that can also de-orbit was nearly impossible. (They'd burn-up on re-entry.) Specialization is one thing, but a plane that can get into orbit but not come back, that's just stupid.
I've launched a plane into space and been able to bring it back in without burning up (It wasn't a SSTO, it was a jet with rocket engines strapped to it...). It does need to be really light though. And with that design, if I tried to bring it in too fast it had an obnoxious tendency to have the air intakes explode. So basically, needs really good piloting skills and needs to be really light.
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@sloosecannon Yeah well in real-life the Space Shuttle (or Buran if you prefer) had no trouble managing it, and it was fuckin' huge.
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@Groaner said in General Kerbal Discussion:
If you're making an SSTO, minimizing drag cross-section makes a HUGE difference.
Right, but how do the different wing leading edges with the different angles affect that? What happens when I overlap wings? I try to make the wing sections look nice, which requires a bit of overlap to hide the black edges. Is that bad for the plane? Doesn't matter? Stuff I need to look up (or test, but that would take a lot of time).
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@blakeyrat said in General Kerbal Discussion:
Space Shuttle (or Buran if you prefer) had no trouble
tl;dr (and it's very l indeed) slowing down the orbiter is really hard. Angle of attack increases drag but at the cost of heat, which is at a premium. That's why the orbiter traces S-shapes, they let the orbiter get lower into denser air more quickly by cutting lift.
I do miss infernal robotics or whichever the mod was that gave you moving parts. It'd be neat to have air intakes that fold away for re-entry.
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@AyGeePlus Huh. The last time I played, that was a part. Of course, I'm a dirty cheater and used mods (including parts mods), so that may have been an addon.
I'm going to install KSP again and give it another crack. Just the engineering mods, no parts this time out.
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status: Just launched a ridiculously large rocket that burned for 20 minutes and 15 stages on launch to send Bill, Bob and Jebbediah on a Sun escape....
after the burn they're going at just over 40km/s still inside Kerbin SOI..... they'll never be seen again.
MWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
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@accalia The exhaust from that probably devastated the Kerbin biosphere.
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Using accelerate time to let my Jool station chug through the data it has. KIND OF CHEATING I GUESS!
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@blakeyrat Holy shit the Whiplash is like an ORDER OF MAGNITUDE better than all previous jet engines
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@blakeyrat said in General Kerbal Discussion:
@blakeyrat Holy shit the Whiplash is like an ORDER OF MAGNITUDE better than all previous jet engines
Pretty much. It also has the coolest-looking exhaust.
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@Groaner How come air bleed doesn't show up as a "resource" anymore? It's hard to guess when the engines are about to flame-out.
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@blakeyrat said in General Kerbal Discussion:
@Groaner How come air bleed doesn't show up as a "resource" anymore? It's hard to guess when the engines are about to flame-out.
No idea. Right-clicking on an intake still shows current flow. Intake air is less of a limiting factor than in v0.90, because there are altitude-based thrust curves for each engine that usually cut engine thrust to zero long before intake air is gone.
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Oh yeah, SSTO reentry is tricky, but possible. The trick is to nose up (and/or expose as much area as possible). If you go in prograde/retrograde, you will almost certainly blow up. Here's my liquid-fuel-only test craft attempting one from periapsis around 30km and apoapsis around 120km:
The cockpit almost got to red temps, but by this point, we're in the thicker atmosphere, so all is good.
And by this point, we just glide and S-turn for a smooth landing.
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@blakeyrat Well, piggy-backing a booster got it to 900 m/s at sea level, that should work from 22,000 meters.
I'll do a run tomorrow. If I just throw-out the booster, it's close enough to a space plane, right?
EDIT: BTW, the part that overheats first? The goddamned collapsible ladder my Kerbals need to board the plane! WTF.
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@Weng said in General Kerbal Discussion:
@accalia The exhaust from that probably devastated the Kerbin biosphere.
if the exhaust didn't the burning down of the VAB and part of the research complex as spent rocket stages fell on them certainly did a number on the old environment.
oops?
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I just learned the KSC has like ten biomes inside, one per building. About 200 science you can pick up right there with a rover. About to unlock the mobile lab, except I need to upgrade the science center first, which takes money. So back to ferrying tourists to the Mun.
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@Kian Yep. One of the first things I do upon getting steerable landing gear and a basic jet engine is build a Science Truck. It's a pretty damned repetitive mission, what with interminable cycles of "drive, crew report, hit thermometer, science jr, goo, barometric pressure, EVA, collect data from experiments, reset experiments, EVA report, soil sample, store data, board"
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@Weng said in General Kerbal Discussion:
One of the first things I do upon getting steerable landing gear and a basic jet engine is build a Science Truck. It's a pretty damned repetitive mission, what with interminable cycles of "drive, crew report, hit thermometer, science jr, goo, barometric pressure, EVA, collect data from experiments, reset experiments, EVA report, soil sample, store data, board"
Why not just build a truck with a handful of each experiment? Then you don't need to worry about losing some of the science from transmitting. Depending on how large you build it, you might need to do a few missions, but there's really no need to transmit all the data.
Or do you see negligible science loss because you are actually on base?
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@abarker said in General Kerbal Discussion:
Why not just build a truck with a handful of each experiment?
just have one of each, crew it with a scientist, EVA to collect and reset the data, then store the experiments in the cockpit and drive to the next location.
;-)
abuse the science system for personal gain!
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@accalia Have they removed the limit on how much data the cockpits and crew modules can hold? I haven't had a chance to test it in my new campaign, but I know there was a limit in 1.0.
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@Weng Wow, what patch did that come in? It used to be like "Runway", "Launch Pad" and that's it.
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@abarker said in General Kerbal Discussion:
@accalia Have they removed the limit on how much data the cockpits and crew modules can hold?
no, they can only hold one instance of an experiment per biome, and there is a maximum limit.
it's pretty generous though, you'll not likely exceed it just by driving around the space centre even if you have all the science experiments.
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@abarker said in General Kerbal Discussion:
Why not just build a truck with a handful of each experiment?
My science truck has 4 of each goo and materials, and a single thermometer and barometer since that's how many times I have to run each experiment to get all the science they're worth. I launched from the runway, moved to a building, triggered all the experiments, plus crew report and EVA, and recovered the craft. Much faster than resetting experiments, and since you recover from the base you don't actually lose any money.
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@blakeyrat Dunno, I noticed it on the wiki after 1.0. A few sub building biomes actually go away when you upgrade buildings, too, so if you're going to milk it you have to do it fairly early.
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Ugh. On a return trip from the Mun, I aimed my periapsis at 60 km, since on the last trip I had done 50 and on the entry burn (burning the remaining fuel before dropping the last stage) my periapsis had dropped to 35, I entered too hot and that had blown up my landing struts (didn't kill anyone, luckily, since the heat shield sacrificed itself). But my entry burn this time only lowered the periapsis to 55 and the apoapsis was at 500 km.
So I had to do like 8 orbits before enough speed was bled off in the higher atmosphere for the ship to finally land.
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@Kian said in General Kerbal Discussion:
So I had to do like 8 orbits before enough speed was bled off in the higher atmosphere for the ship to finally land.
hehe I've done that before.
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Seriously, the Mark 2 cockpit overheats at 18,000m and 1100 m/s???
I can't believe I have to install RADIATORS to make this work.
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@blakeyrat FINALLY a working spaceplane, kind of.
With a whole 78 units of fuel to spare. Just enough to re-enter. Not enough to like dock with a space station or anything... I did carry around some useless oxidizer though.
They still haven't fixed the "toggle" caption on the Mark 2 Clamp-o-tron, that bug's been there since the part was introduced.
EDIT: I did manage to re-enter without incident! Maybe I'm ready to do a flight with actual kerbals on board...
Fortunately this thing can cruise at about 10% throttle which means even that tiny amount of fuel should be enough for a controlled landing.
EDIT: Successful Kerba-landing!
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Muahaha, here's a good use of heat shields:
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@blakeyrat I'm having a lot of trouble cramming all the stuff I need onto this mining rig without also making it ginormous.
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@blakeyrat ... Is that a single craft? Does that configuration work?
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@Weng said in General Kerbal Discussion:
Does that configuration work?
i'm wondering if he's getting any thrust at all in that configuration.... i know for a fact that running with FAR (or NEAR) physics don't work like that and you would have zero net thrust, and i'm pretty sure stock physics would have same result.
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@accalia I think he's using it for the alternator power? @blakeyrat?
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@AyGeePlus said in General Kerbal Discussion:
I think he's using it for the alternator power?
oh..... hadn't thought of that.
clever.
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@Weng said in General Kerbal Discussion:
... Is that a single craft?
... yes.
@Weng said in General Kerbal Discussion:
Does that configuration work?
It "works" in that it lets me prove I can take-off a Skipper-powered rocket from my mining rig without anything on the mining rig exploding as a result.
It doesn't "work" in that the craft actually moves at all.
Look at this strange thing: does it work?
Well... yes. It works in that it does exactly what it was designed to do. But no, the rocket does not take off.
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@AyGeePlus said in General Kerbal Discussion:
@accalia I think he's using it for the alternator power? @blakeyrat?
Nope. Just testing that the heatshields don't let any rocket backwash hit the delicate fuel tanks underneath them.
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@accalia Although he's using it to power a refinery. I wonder if you get net power that way?
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@AyGeePlus I put fuel cells on it to power it at night when there's no sun. Honestly I don't know if fuel cells "make a profit" but they take very little fuel so I assume they do.
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Now that I have all the Kerbodyne parts unlocked, it's like easy-mode.
The thing looks kind of amazing in orbit:
Closeup of the protective shell:
