General Kerbal Discussion
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@accalia said in General Kerbal Discussion:
don't trust your altimeter in standard view as that's altitude from sea level. there's an actual radar altimeter in IVA mode that you can use, but landing in IVA is a lot harder.
Yeah, in standard view, you have two options:
- If landing in sun light, go off your shadow. If you can see your lander's shadow, you need to be < 10 m/s.
- If landing on the dark side of something have landing lights and try to judge your distance based on the amount of light they cast on the surface. Again, if you can tell you are illuminating the surface, you need to be falling slow.
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@abarker said in General Kerbal Discussion:
If landing on the dark side of something have landing lights and try to judge your distance based on the amount of light they cast on the surface. Again, if you can tell you are illuminating the surface, you need to be falling slow.
Use the Dambusters trick. Aim the brighter round spotlights so they intersect when your craft's 100m or so off the ground. It's easy to see the lights intersecting even on the darkest surfaces. Then drop your spinning bomb and bubye Nazis!
... oh wait.
(Also, if they had access to radar altimeters in 1943 they surely would have used one of those instead, but still.)
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@blakeyrat I wonder why there aren't laser rangefinder parts in KSP.
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@AyGeePlus I honestly wouldn't mind a part that added a laser or radar altimeter or rangefinder. In real life, NASA astronauts generally carried a hand-held rangefinder... you can see Kevin Bacon using it when docking the LEM to the command module in Apollo 13. Not sure what the Russkies did.
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@blakeyrat Long stick? Bit of string? They didn't really have a lunar program, so they only had to worry about docking in space.
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More asteroid wrangling:
This time with a Class D.
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@blakeyrat said in General Kerbal Discussion:
This time with a Class D.
That's about the point where they start to get really annoying, especially in career mode.
Game: We want you to put a Class D asteroid in orbit of Tylo and build a station into it housing no fewer than 35 kerbals.
Me: HAHA LOL NOPE.(though I'd consider it if it were to orbit Laythe instead)
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@Groaner said in General Kerbal Discussion:
Game: We want you to put a Class D asteroid in orbit of Tylo and build a station into it housing no fewer than 35 kerbals.
Jesus, seriously? That'd take like a WEEK in RL time to set up.
Better view of asteroid moving, with a good show of my "SAS probes". The asteroid mover carries 4 of those, they help me aim the rock without the gripper tearing off.
Unfortunately I'm going to have to gas up this asteroid mover at least once.
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@blakeyrat said in General Kerbal Discussion:
@Anonymouse said in General Kerbal Discussion:
@Erufael Installing a mod that estimates your vessel's Δv goes a long way towards increasing your chances of success.Cheat.
Let me ask you an honest question, do you believe Squad didn't include that because they're incompetent? Or because it doesn't fit their vision of the game?
Let me take option #3: I think they haven't included Δv calculations because they're focusing on other features, and possibly believe they don't have to bother because, "hey, there's plenty of mods for that."
@Anonymouse said in General Kerbal Discussion:
In fact, IMO it's really a major oversight that something like that isn't already a feature of the core game,
It's not an oversight.
... in YOUR opinion.
@Anonymouse said in General Kerbal Discussion:
unless you think finding out (by pure trial-and-error) that your craft runs out of fuel on the home stretch from a distant planet and having to do a hour-long mission all over from the beginning is fun.
You're not supposed to do it from the beginning
Then make it researchable via the tech tree, or part of an upgrade to the VAB or the Lab or whichever building is most appropriate.
you're supposed to use that as an excuse to say, "oh man, now I have to make a rescue mission-- awesome!"
A rescue mission that you again have no idea whether it even has a chance to succeed to begin with, so you're again stuck with guesswork and trial-and-error. And possibly have to send out a rescue mission to rescue the rescue mission...
That might be your idea of fun. But - I know, this might be a difficult concept for you to grasp - that is not true for everyone. Certainly not to me, because I'm not a masochist.
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@blakeyrat said in General Kerbal Discussion:
@Anonymouse said in General Kerbal Discussion:
Oh. I don't know if those Kerbal skills do anything in science mode, and I don't play campaign mode because it's boring as shit. So.Ohh. You're playing science mode... now it all makes sense. See, if you were playing campaign mode like a real man, where every failed mission can spell a quick game-over you'd see how indispensible a Δv estimate during the planning stage is.
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@Anonymouse I play science mode because campaign mode is boring as fuck.
And yes, failing a mission can bankrupt you. That's THE GAME.
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@Anonymouse said in General Kerbal Discussion:
"hey, there's plenty of mods for that."
And probably there's enough people like blakey who like playing without. Adding it in by default makes that pretty much impossible.
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@PleegWat said in General Kerbal Discussion:
@Anonymouse said in General Kerbal Discussion:
"hey, there's plenty of mods for that."
And probably there's enough people like blakey who like playing without. Adding it in by default makes that pretty much impossible.
They can just not look at the Δv readout. Problem solved. Or it could be an option to show it.
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@Anonymouse said in General Kerbal Discussion:
They can just not look at the Δv readout. Problem solved. Or it could be an option to show it.
You don't know how gamers think do you?
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@Anonymouse Whatever. I'll concede that maybe Squad's design document has that and the reason it's not in the game (despite the game being version 1.1) is ?????.
I like it the way it is.
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@PleegWat said in General Kerbal Discussion:
You don't know how gamers think do you?
The game already has a lot of options to adjust the difficulty levels to your liking. Surely you're not thinking everyone is playing on the easiest level with no reentry heat and heaps of cash and whatever, just because they can't resist doing that? People want to challenge themselves. That's fine, give them the option to. So Δv could easily be one of them. People who want to play a gung-ho blow-shit-up style like blakey can the turn it off, people like me who run their KSC more like NASA with missions less trial-and-error and more carefully planned beforehand can turn it on - everyone's happy.
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FUUUCK another mission ruined due to a physics bug. This is ridiculous.
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@blakeyrat said in General Kerbal Discussion:
You're not supposed to do it from the beginning
Good, because that'd be the time to put up a link to Shamus Young's DIAS article.
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@blakeyrat said in General Kerbal Discussion:
Look, you play the game how you want, and I'll play the game how I want.
Maybe if that's your attitude, you shouldn't call people who play it their way cheaters.
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@blakeyrat Wow. Just approaching that asteroid pictured above in another ship causes it to spaz-out and explode.
Ok starting the refueling mission for the THIRD time...
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@Anonymouse said in General Kerbal Discussion:
@PleegWat said in General Kerbal Discussion:
@Anonymouse said in General Kerbal Discussion:
"hey, there's plenty of mods for that."
And probably there's enough people like blakey who like playing without. Adding it in by default makes that pretty much impossible.
They can just not look at the Δv readout. Problem solved. Or it could be an option to show it.
And yet maneuver nodes show Δv required in m/s, which is pretty useless without knowing how much there is in each stage!
I'm okay with a no-third-party mods policy, but when one can calculate Δv using wet/dry mass and Excel, the argument against calculating Δv is not about cheating, it's about min-maxing. I can accept not wanting to engage in min-maxing, but that's a personal preference.
We have beaten this dead horse into a coma.
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@Anonymouse said in General Kerbal Discussion:
@blakeyrat said in General Kerbal Discussion:
@Anonymouse said in General Kerbal Discussion:
Oh. I don't know if those Kerbal skills do anything in science mode, and I don't play campaign mode because it's boring as shit. So.Ohh. You're playing science mode... now it all makes sense. See, if you were playing campaign mode like a real man, where every failed mission can spell a quick game-over you'd see how indispensible a Δv estimate during the planning stage is.
What's this "game-over" you speak of? I have over 25M in cash in my current Moderate save.
And the only thing about Moderate that's annoying is that the resource maps lie due to reduced resources, so you have to aim for the dead center of a region if you want your ISRU stations to be able to mine anything.
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@blakeyrat Yup. Getting within 300m of that asteroid causes it to spaz-out and explode. 100% of the time. I tried undocking the ship and turning off SAS and RCS, no good. Fuck.
EDIT:
Even if I get the second ship within 1000m and then use the [ key to switch ships, it spazzes and explodes. So I guess I just have to delete it and start over. Fun.
EDIT EDIT:
Dumb workaround solution: use the RCS on the asteroid to move it towards the ship, instead of the other way 'round. Go figure, it worked.
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@blakeyrat said in General Kerbal Discussion:
Jesus, seriously? That'd take like a WEEK in RL time to set up.
I'm exaggerating, but only slightly. There are a fair amount of space-station-in-asteroid missions, and the requirements can be finicky/buggy (I've had a craft with all the required parts connect to the asteroid and still no mission success). The next time I'm offered such a silly mission, I'll post it.
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Today:
- Rescued Bill
- Expanded on my Jool science station (added a "utility craft" with atomic engines to carry the lander, also tons more power since the science lab is SUPER power-hungry)
I still need to wrangle a Class A and a Class E asteroid to finish my formation, then visit all of them to get the science...
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- Finally grabbed a Class E:
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@blakeyrat
In your second picture (your Jool Science Station), how are all those parts connected? Are they just docked? I'm trying to improve my space station designs.
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@Erufael Docking ports up the wazzoo.
Here's what that "station support" ship looked like on the launching pad:
You can see there's 4 docking ports on that one ship alone. One on either side of the "solar power pylon" and one on either side of the utility ship.
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@blakeyrat Wow. I find that seriously impressive. So far, in orbit docking is the thing I hate doing the most. :/
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@Erufael You get used to it. Took me AGES to get it right when I started the game. It's actually a lot easier with the new RCS controls, you don't have to spaz-out on the spacebar anymore to switch between "turn" and "move" mode, they mapped out both modes right on the same keyboard.
One thing I need to re-test in the latest version is whether the Rockomax docking connectors are still ass-tastic. They used to have virtually no magnetic force and were actually LESS useful than the 1m docking ports.
But I haven't unlocked them yet in this game.
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Well, I discovered thermometers consume battery power in the dumbest, most annoying way possible. I had sent a passenger ship to the Mun to orbit and return. Everything went perfect, the ship had been captured by Kerbins gravity and periapsis was at 50 km for a couple of aerobraking passes. Since I had just unlocked thermometers, I was testing it out and turned the "display temp" on. Then forgot about it and sped up to 1000x. When I was approaching Kerbin, I was out of power and had no way to control the orientation of the ship. Blew up on the atmosphere -_-
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@Kian Protip: if you're in doubt, add a battery to the ship and before launch set it to "disabled" (hit the green arrow on its widget to disable it). Batteries won't discharge while disabled, and if you're otherwise fucked, you can re-enable it and use the energy in it to open your solar panels or do whatever you need to earn power back.
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Ah, finally an ORDERLY solar system:
A place for every asteroid and every asteroid in its place.
Time to do some Jool moon landings, I guess.
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Utility ship docked with lander. Wimpy combo, but by Jool standards should be sufficient, if I can keep the damned thing fueled.
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First stop: Pol
And back at the station with more science than my science lab can even handle.
Even the easiest moon took about 1000 units of fuel, sigh. Gonna need to build a fuel delivery ship.
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@blakeyrat said in General Kerbal Discussion:
Utility ship docked with lander. Wimpy combo, but by Jool standards should be sufficient, if I can keep the damned thing fueled.
Can you run fuel gathering missions to Jool or do you have to fly the stuff in from Kerbin?
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@PleegWat said in General Kerbal Discussion:
Can you run fuel gathering missions to Jool or do you have to fly the stuff in from Kerbin?
I have two choices:
- I can wait for the Jool science station to transmit enough science to let me build a refinery lander, then send that to Jool and mine on Pol or Bop. Then start mining operations, then wait for the mining ship's tanks to fill up, then transport that back to the station
- I can send a heap-o-fuel.
Probably going to do 2.
If I do 1, though, I'd probably build a new station on Pol, since it's so light, and get rid of the old orbiting one.
EDIT: Or:
- Take my Duna lander which I know works and my Jool long-range ship, load both up with radiators, and take the combo to Moho and back. That should provide enough science to do option 1 with more to spare.
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@blakeyrat said in General Kerbal Discussion:
- I can wait for the Jool science station to transmit enough science to let me build a refinery lander, then send that to Jool and mine on Pol or Bop. Then start mining operations, then wait for the mining ship's tanks to fill up, then transport that back to the station
- I can send a heap-o-fuel.
Probably going to do 2.
If I do 1, though, I'd probably build a new station on Pol, since it's so light, and get rid of the old orbiting one.
EDIT: Or:
- Take my Duna lander which I know works and my Jool long-range ship, load both up with radiators, and take the combo to Moho and back. That should provide enough science to do option 1 with more to spare.
ISRU is a great way to avoid having to worry about building expensive thousand-ton rockets to have enough mass fraction to meet Δv requirements. These days, I launch my ISRU bases with near-empty tanks to refuel on Minmus and save on launch costs/part count.
Mining stations on Pol or Bop are probably going to be the best bet if you're planning on having a lasting presence in the Jool system. ISRU is a lot trickier on the inner moons, as you need a two-stage lander to do a land/return on Tylo, and Laythe's ore resources are sparsely placed. I also have yet to build an ISRU SSTO that brings enough of its fuel back into orbit to be viable.
Don't forget the fuel cells, though. Solar panels only provide 4% of their Kerbin output near Jool.
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@blakeyrat said in General Kerbal Discussion:
Take my Duna lander which I know works and my Jool long-range ship, load both up with radiators, and take the combo to Moho and back. That should provide enough science to do option 1 with more to spare.
Ok, well I managed to strand Bill 2.8 million meters from Moho. Might be awhile, Bill.
However, while I was stranding him there, I managed to get enough science from my Jool station to unlock the mining equipment, yay. And inexplicably the Gravioli Detector is in the same tech group.
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Experimenting to see if I can make a fuel mining platform that can also serve as a landing platform.
Those metal plates can withstand 2/3rds of a Skipper for almost a full minute. Should be more than sufficient. Especially on Pol, where there's so little gravity it's more of a docking than a landing.
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This little Mig-15 looking thing is the closest I can get to a working spaceplane:
And it still don't work.
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@blakeyrat Ok, I give up. It's impossible to make a spaceplane using the Panther jet engine.
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@blakeyrat Using two itty rocket engines and a "giant" turbofan seems like spaceplane hard mode. At altitude it's a complicated intake drag vs intake air vs thrust balancing act I've never got right. Once you start slowing down you can't stop, because less speed -> less air.
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@AyGeePlus Kerbal 1.0+ is spaceplane hard mode. Believe me that was just one of the 2 dozen iterations I tried. Late last night I came up with one that did marginally better, before giving up because I honestly think it's impossible with that jet engine unless you add like solid rocket boosters or something.
There's one more jet engine I can unlock, along with the "lifting body" airplane parts. I need to wait a month (Kerbal time) for my Jool science station to finish processing some shit.
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@blakeyrat What issues do you find? Cant pick enough speed to orbit? Can't make it to space? At what stage are you failing?
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.
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@Kian The Panther loses thrust too quickly, even with the afterburner. I can't get anything with a Panther much over 1100 m/s, certainly not while also climbing.
And that's too slow for a non-super-heavy rocket to take over. (Or a super-heavy Atomic engine, for obvious reasons.) Sure a Skipper could do it, but then you have to carry a Skipper and its fuel with you.
In the old physics engine, using the old turbojet, you could easily cruise at 1400 m/s.
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@blakeyrat Sounds like the engine chokes too soon? I take it adding a second intake introduced other issues?
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@Kian I gotta go to work, I don't have time to screenshot the whole development history. Suffice it to say: I can not make a spaceplane with a Panther.
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@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.
