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Fly me to the Moon (Space Race Council Quest)

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Guess that puts me as:

[X] The Pilot
-[X] Fighter Jock: Every time a Mission Objective is completed, the Pilot gains the ability to change a mission targeted by a Deadline or a Contract to a Crewed mission of the same tier.
-[X] Back during the war...: Once per routine, when performing an action during the Planning Phase, the Pilot may use their Flight stat in place of another.

And in an epic @open_sketch crossover moment, it's Konstantin Vsevolodov Kilesso, hard-partying fighter ace of the Second Great War.
 
Kirill Evgenevich Paton built the tanks that rolled into Albrechtburg to end the last war, and if the rodina needs him to build the rockets to prevent the next, he'll do that too.

An updated table:
ChiefDirectorInventorRocketeerPilotReroll with:
Design (ENG)-201**1-2**$
Plan (FLT)10-1**23&
Order (OPS)2*2*-2**-3-1**&
Schedule (OPS)22*-2**-3-1**&
Modify (ENG)-201**1-2**&
Construct (OPS)22-2**-3-1**!
Research (FOR)0-13**11**$
Undertake (FOR)0-13**11**N/A
Passive Resource Gain&, no !&, no $Budget
* can do it twice per routine
** can use highest stat instead once per routine

We're much weaker now on the "designing parts" side of things, not having that +3 (with reroll) anymore, but in exchange we're now pretty good at putting rockets together.

Could it be time for big dumb boosters?
 
Viktor (Viki) Orlovsky: A warm stout man in his early forties hailing from Norilsk, Siberia. He came to the program recommended by his superiors for his work managing the rollout of equipment to the front lines at the start of the war and continued patriotic service to the Motherland.
The complex calculations needed for spaceflight (or even why you need a giant pipe to go to space...) are a little beyond him, but he knows to trust the egg-heads, and will make great strides to make sure Russia is the first.

Vikki was the first to recommended the isolated NIIP-5 "If this research is so special, then surely it is better to make sure old Joe American can't send his men in suits. They'll surely freeze to death!"
On the question of where to start he was a little more unsure "This is where the dog is buried" he mutters in thought "What's the point in making something new when we can piggyback off the other design groups for now till we come up with something better?"
Unless we think we can chance it, I recommend we just roll to order something wholesale and we can tinker away at it.

Edit: added a word.
 
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Having not been told to do anything yet, I suggest that we spam Research, Undertake and Construct actions to build a technological, political and physical base for future work. We can build a rocket once we have a better idea of what it should do than "Up".

And then over in that field we get a big wind tunnel, bigger than the ones in Dyskeland! Actually, could we ask the Army to dig up one of their ones and bring it here? Call it reparations payments? I went drinking with Comrade-Marshaless Vatutina when I was out there, I'll ring her and ask.
 
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While infrastructure wouldn't hurt where possible, I think we really want to launch a first rocket in the first year. That'll raise our budget for the second year. Also, if I'm reading it right, we can't research anything beyond Tier 0 until we are working on a mission beyond Tier 0 - IE, we can't do any Research actions until we complete the Experimental Rocket. That would make sense, but would certainly mean we do want to prioritize that first rocket.
 
What's the limit on what we can do with a starting tech rocket? Could we stretch it into tier 1 or 2 missions? From a quick read-through, we might be able to jump straight to completing the first tier science objectives, and then possibly either second tier of science or military. If we do that, then we could scale that initial infrastructure directly for our orbital shot.
 
C_Z said:
What's the limit on what we can do with a starting tech rocket? Could we stretch it into tier 1 or 2 missions? From a quick read-through, we might be able to jump straight to completing the first tier science objectives, and then possibly either second tier of science or military. If we do that, then we could scale that initial infrastructure directly for our orbital shot.
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At this point, as long as the starting rocket is reliable enough that redesigning it isn't more actions efficient, we can easily make it big enough to do all Tier 1 missions and maybe Tier 2 Science (the weight of tier 2 science components hasn't been revealed yet). The reliability will likely be the issue.

Tier 2 Military probably demands a fairly large rocket (an early nuclear warhead over 4km/s) that may be usable as part of an orbital launcher or suborbital manned launch but would likely be way overpriced for a sounding rocket.
 
The problem with early teach (especially early engine tech) isn't that it can't do things, it's that it cannot do them efficiently. If you want to stay within a one ton launch facility, fuelled, you're going to have to upgrade sooner or later.
But Dessard is generally correct yes.
 
Dessard said:
At this point, as long as the starting rocket is reliable enough that redesigning it isn't more actions efficient, we can easily make it big enough to do all Tier 1 missions and maybe Tier 2 Science (the weight of tier 2 science components hasn't been revealed yet). The reliability will likely be the issue.

Tier 2 Military probably demands a fairly large rocket (an early nuclear warhead over 4km/s) that may be usable as part of an orbital launcher or suborbital manned launch but would likely be way overpriced for a sounding rocket.
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Could we circumvent the reliability issue just buy lauching more rockets?

I'm thinking of an overall plan where we build a primitive rocket, use that to hit our initial objectives, and use that unlock to "spam Research, Undertake and Construct actions to build a technological, political and physical base for future work." If we complete the level 2 science mission, it lets us unlock level 3 technologies like kerolox, showerhead injectors, explosive bolts, RCS, and the like. From there, the jump to completing tier 4 missions - and thus tier 5 tech - is relatively minor (we go from an ICBM with 8 km/s to an orbital LV with 9 km/s).
 
C_Z said:
Could we circumvent the reliability issue just buy lauching more rockets?
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We can, though if for example we're planning on launching three T1 missions and one T2 mission and the rocket has only a 50% success rate, it may actually take fewer actions to research T1 tech and design new components than to order and launch the 'extra' rockets it'll probably take to overcome the failure rate.

That plan makes a lot of sense overall, we may just find that a T1 design makes sense to add.
 
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Spamming rockets does sound very much in the mindset of the motherland, and if luck is on our side most of them will hit targets. Upgrading when we *need* to. Achieving those objectives first is more important than a "good" rocket since we'll out compete other research groups by sheet numbers if we can get away with it. Plus if our success is good enough, we may get handed designs and staff by the higher ups.
 
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We do have an advantage for that early on - our agency bonus means that all of our missions are one tier easier than they would normally be.
 
Dessard said:
We do have an advantage for that early on - our agency bonus means that all of our missions are one tier easier than they would normally be.
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*Vikki taps his nose knowingly "I also do not think they would waste talent on a single Union team. I've heard rumblings from workers there's at least two other OKB divisions working on these targets"*

Edit: at least historically. The Soviet space program was apparently very lassise faire compared to the rigid American program.
 
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Okay, so initial five actions are something along the lines of:
[ ] Design - Crap Engine
[ ] Design - Crap Booster
[ ] Design - Crap Payload
[ ] Undertake - Capital
[ ] Undertake - Clout

Instinctively I want a 1M Supersonic Wind Tunnel, but that's almost all of our in-year budget and would mean that the rocket we design has to be significantly smaller than Vrede was in the other quest. If we can get a Source of Capital that becomes a significantly easier ambition. We also should not plan or schedule any launch of a rocket that we haven't designed any components of yet, in case we need rerolls. How big do we think we want to go with the rocket? It might be worth trying to wring 1500m/s out of it, that would allow us to complete the first three prestige objectives with the same design and surely the first two scientific objectives merely by swapping payloads around.
 
FrangibleCover said:
How big do we think we want to go with the rocket? It might be worth trying to wring 1500m/s out of it, that would allow us to complete the first three prestige objectives with the same design and surely the first two scientific objectives merely by swapping payloads around.
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Agreed on your general plan. I've been doing some math on this question, making the following assumptions:
  • Single-stage liquid-fuelled rocket of no more than 1M
  • Engine of ~90kg with 161s Isp and producing 1.5 M of force (enough for a 1.5 thrust-weight ratio)
  • Heavy tanks and basic fins
It looks like Science 2 probably isn't viable with a rocket like that - we could probably achieve about 50kg of payload, maybe less, with a maximal design that couldn't fit on our launchpad carrying any more than that 50kg for the other missions. But we have a lot of latitude to play around with the design for any of the T1 missions.

IMO, we should decide how we want to optimize the rocket between three goals: cheap engine, payload for the military/commercial missions (which gives no mechanical effects but would be nice), high TWR (and thus stability). Here is the spreadsheet I've been using if anyone wants to download a copy - the orange cells are inputs.

However, before giving any specific options - I can't quite understand the engine math, and while I've finally been able to calculate engines with thrust and Isp that match the examples from the other quest, my cost and math mass is about 20% off and I can't figure out what the problem is. @4WheelSword , do you have an example/spreadsheet of the engine calculations you could show?
 
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Something we could do is get the high TWR engine, build an engine stand for it (which is actually only going to be 0.18C, a manageable amount) and then hope to get a high reliability roll for it which then means that we can sensibly reuse it for larger rockets, possibly as a bundled engine.
 
That seems reasonable enough to me.

What about trying to design a fairly large SRB? For comparison's sake, our initial rocket will be using Ethalox, giving a base Isp of 282 s; our primitive turbomachinery has a 0.6x multiplier and nozzle a 0.95x modifier for a final Isp of 161 s. Meanwhile, the basic solid motor has an Isp of 190 seconds. I haven't run the detailed math yet, but it'd mean we don't need to spend a design action on the engine and a single-stage solid rocket would be useful later as a booster for orbital rockets as well.

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FrangibleCover said:
Something we could do is get the high TWR engine, build an engine stand for it (which is actually only going to be 0.18C, a manageable amount) and then hope to get a high reliability roll for it which then means that we can sensibly reuse it for larger rockets, possibly as a bundled engine.
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I'd rather we wait until we get some actual fuels. Engine test stands are locked to a specific fuel type AIUI, and Ethalox is trash.
 
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C_Z said:
That seems reasonable enough to me.

What about trying to design a fairly large SRB? For comparison's sake, our initial rocket will be using Ethalox, giving a base Isp of 282 s; our primitive turbomachinery has a 0.6x multiplier and nozzle a 0.95x modifier for a final Isp of 161 s. Meanwhile, the basic solid motor has an Isp of 190 seconds. I haven't run the detailed math yet, but it'd mean we don't need to spend a design action on the engine and a single-stage solid rocket would be useful later as a booster for orbital rockets as well.
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Solid boosters look good, but the starting tech makes the dry mass like 40% of the wet mass, which makes it not that useful for anything but a high-Stability starting kick. A small solid booster for that purpose could let us get away with a smaller engine though.
 
Dessard said:
Solid boosters look good, but the starting tech makes the dry mass like 40% of the wet mass, which makes it not that useful for anything but a high-Stability starting kick. A small solid booster for that purpose could let us get away with a smaller engine though.
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How does that compare to a primitive engine+tankage? The break-even point for those is a dry mass of around 33% (ignoring advantages to cost or action economy).
 
Some of the numbers have changed since the other quest went through the process - at least for the VREDE. I forget when the razic got put together. Lets update the XRE-2 from that quest because it uses all the right bumf:
XRE-2Mass RatioMass FlowIspThrustMassCost
Engine1000kg/M161s17.27kN0.095M0.761C
Motor0.016169s0.063M0.441C
Nozzle161s0.032M0.32C
So it's a 95 kilo engine with 16kg/s mass flow.
 
[X] Kapustny Pol, Astrakhan, a military test facility

Why? Because an isolated secret facility makes everything more expensive and difficult, while the civilian use of rockets at this point is... limited. The USSR's space program grew on top of it's ICBM research, and if we build out rockets to share tooling with ICBMs it will really help to cut costs.

Ok, so we need 3 Design action on our experimental rocket first, because we cannot do any Plan, Order, or Schedule actions until those are done.

I would say that we should do one Undertake (Capital) action to let us re-roll a design roll if needed, and use our last action on Research of hypergolic fuels in preparation for a Guided missile.

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FrangibleCover said:
Okay, so initial five actions are something along the lines of:
[ ] Design - Crap Engine
[ ] Design - Crap Booster
[ ] Design - Crap Payload
[ ] Undertake - Capital
[ ] Undertake - Clout

Instinctively I want a 1M Supersonic Wind Tunnel, but that's almost all of our in-year budget and would mean that the rocket we design has to be significantly smaller than Vrede was in the other quest. If we can get a Source of Capital that becomes a significantly easier ambition. We also should not plan or schedule any launch of a rocket that we haven't designed any components of yet, in case we need rerolls. How big do we think we want to go with the rocket? It might be worth trying to wring 1500m/s out of it, that would allow us to complete the first three prestige objectives with the same design and surely the first two scientific objectives merely by swapping payloads around.
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I like the idea of knocking out so many objectives with a single design. Is it possible tho? I'm still wrapping my head around the rocket builder.
 
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CyberFemme said:
[X] Kapustny Pol, Astrakhan, a military test facility

Why? Because an isolated secret facility makes everything more expensive and difficult, while the civilian use of rockets at this point is... limited. The USSR's space program grew on top of it's ICBM research, and if we build out rockets to share tooling with ICBMs it will really help to cut costs.

Ok, so we need 3 Design action on our experimental rocket first, because we cannot do any Plan, Order, or Schedule actions until those are done.

I would say that we should do one Undertake (Capital) action to let us re-roll a design roll if needed, and use our last action on Research of hypergolic fuels in preparation for a Guided missile.

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I like the idea of knocking out so many objectives with a single design. Is it possible tho? I'm still wrapping my head around the rocket builder.
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We can't research hypergolics yet AIUI.

If we're going for capital, you're probably the best choice for that, with your +3 modifier (and therefore non-terrible odds of getting Source: Capital).

Tbh I think the first order of business will be making a rocket design spreadsheet :D
 
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