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Man, I tried picking this back up again and holy moly but suborbital stuff is a lot harsher than I remember. I keep coming in steep and exploding 
Kerbal Space Program Thread V1.0 - Lets capture that Asteroid
- Thread starter Warringer
- Start date
- Megathread
Hit Mach 3, plane spontaneously combusts, eh?Man, I tried picking this back up again and holy moly but suborbital stuff is a lot harsher than I remember. I keep coming in steep and exploding
Then there's the occasional time where you drop a booster into the atmosphere to burn up and it somehow survives.
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Nah, more that I keep going for the "breach the atmosphere" contract on solid boosters, and the trajectory is too up-and-down or I goof my aeros and wind up coming down nose first or what have you.
I seem to be getting less science than I used to. I'm doing a second mun mission (hauling four tourists up there) to try to get enough to research powered wheals and rcs.
Mechanis
Confirmed Extremely Screwed
- Location
- Absconding with Alacrity
yeah, I noticed that too. I've countered by creeping the Science reward percentage up- 160% seems to be about what I used to be, feel-wise so I'm not either getting too much or stalling out- maintaining a smooth progression is tricky.
It's forcing me to use really odd space ships too. I'm don't have any big engines, so I'm using about 12 of the side mounted ones to get enough thrust. It's so weird for me. I'm so used to being further down the tech tree.
- Location
- in the trash
Hmm. They made stacking processing labs work properly now so maybe a nerf was implemented to compensate for that? Science labs are admittedly exploitable as hell so there's that.
Though, even without any labs last game I was able to strip mine the entire Kerbin system of science with <1t satellites and biome hoppers and only stalled out because I ran out of money to upgrade the science centre. It's not too hard to find yourself rolling in science if you do things right (and have a few mods).
- Location
- in the trash
Well, if you can't get powerful enough engines, the other way is to economise. Try to save on as much mass as possible. If your payload is small enough you can get away with smaller engines.
For science probes, probe cores and instruments are extremely light, so the engine and fuel tank tend to constitute a very large portion of the dry mass (which isn't very efficient).
The 1.25m engines should be good for handling up to... I'd ballpark 5-10 tons total?
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Mechanis
Confirmed Extremely Screwed
- Location
- Absconding with Alacrity
TBH, I just snagged enough Science Stuff (for example the MOLE while still under development, adds plenty of stuff for early-game Gemini-alikes) and have enough mods that I rarely have issues these days. one thing that can really simplify your life is something like Automated Science Sampler, which is exactly what it says on the tin- complete with auto-resetting (only if you have a Scientist on board), the ability to automatically transfer science to a pod, and so on- Sounding Rockets also provides four nice little experiment boxes that can net you a fair chunk of Science even if you can't think of a million and one uses for three sizes of small solid-fuel boosters that automatically decouple the instant the run out of fuel (I really need to get around to checking how that was done do I can impliment it on other boosters) and of course there's Dmagic's stuff (never leave home without it... all that sweet, sweet lossless data transmission~)
I like doing more than one thing at once sadly. My current mun shot costs me 60k, but since it's going to carry 4 tourists, and a scientist, as well as the pilot, I'll eat the cost.
I also don't really have any interest in more till I 'finish' the game first. Feels like cheating.
Edit: each tourist is giving me over 70k so I'm certainly not losing money. And with a contract to plant a flag, and to gather science from around the mun, it should go rather well.
I mean I'm getting this stupid thing to orbit, it just happens to look rather...
I'll screenshot it tonight.
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- Location
- in the trash
I... don't really see how it feels like cheating? It's a perfectly valid way to play the game.
I admit I'm a sucker for having permanent space infrastructure, so I tend to build a lot of specialised spacecraft even when it's not the most sensible thing to do.
And making extremely lightweight probes that can still fulfil all your desired mission parameters can be kind of fun. Though permanent satellites aren't really useful unless you get DMagic Orbital Science and SCANSat.
Mechanis
Confirmed Extremely Screwed
- Location
- Absconding with Alacrity
.. yeah, the HEER's just a bit ridiculous.
(edit: that's a 50+ degree slope according to an ingame measurement tool, and I accelerated up to 20 m/s from a dead stop at the bottom. twelve heavy-duty drive wheels OP as fuck, yo.)
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Man, I tried picking this back up again and holy moly but suborbital stuff is a lot harsher than I remember. I keep coming in steep and exploding
I discovered that almost all my early spacecraft suffered from a serious case of exploding. In fact unless I came in on an orbit so slight as to make getting down a pain in the ass I found that basically everything always exploded, even when I had the heat shields pointed the correct way (materials bays loved to blow up).
My solution was pretty simple, I added the little boosters to my designs and blast two as I prepare to descend which drastically cuts my velocity as I enter atmosphere, and then I blow either a single one or another two (depending on the design) with the thrust at about half and it kept me from dying.
Later rockets have much less issue (especially when you get the air breaks) but even on those I sometimes kill any remaining rocket fuel before entering the atmosphere.
Also, the drag parachutes are a fantastic solution if you find yourself heading down too quick.
Mechanis
Confirmed Extremely Screwed
- Location
- Absconding with Alacrity
I've found it significantly simplifies things if you take a leaf out of the IRL space program's book and design your ship such that the only thing making a landing is the command pod, and pull all science and samples into said pod. though I do recommend making the decoupler between your heatshield (which should go directly on the bottom of your pod) and the rest of your rocket require manual staging to prevent accidents, I had to leave poor Bob in orbit long enough to get a grapple-tug up once and that was an ordeal even without life support mods or the funding concerns of career mode. at most, a (stock) service bay can survive, any longer than that and you pretty much have to align your heatshield perfectly the whole way down or bits will fall outside its lee-cone and explode. once you have larger rockets, you can somewhat alleviate that by using the 'next size up' heatshield (which has a correspondingly larger lee-cone) but that generally requires a fairing around your payload on the ascent stage, which can add complexity (and cost, in career) so may not be for everyone. my suggestion is to use something like Shipmanafest or the Automated Science Sampler (or even just plain old-fashioned Scientist EVA transfers) to move all your science to a pod and land that rather than attempting to bring back the actual experiment, particularly with Materials Bays which are tall and have a relatively small heat tolerance.
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Mm. That's great, once you have the ability to go EVA.
It is possible to land a pod + bay + heatshield stack, but it can be pretty nerve-racking coming down. Drogue chute deployment at under 3km and dropping at 300m/s, for example.
Mechanis
Confirmed Extremely Screwed
- Location
- Absconding with Alacrity
yeah, Ship Manifest is sorta on my 'must-have' list because of how godsaweful the stock transfer mechanics are when you're trying to fly and, say, pump fuel around to balance your CoM, so even without the auto-transfer feature from Automated Science Sampler I could just move the experiments manually. honestly, I've never had much difficulty landing regarding slowing down, but my preference for extremely shallow reentry angles (I generally shoot for a ~8000km periapsis and let aerobreaking do the rest) and massively redundant parachutes (paired radial-drogues and a nosemount on the MK1 pod, triple drogue-radial and nose on the mk 2, and so on) means that I don't have many issues with reentry. generally, the worst I have is my penchant for early 'top rockets'- using something like the BACC booster to go straight up and then fall for Science reasons.
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So I decided to revisit my old Eve launcher and rebuild it using shiny new pieces and mechanics. I promptly discovered that full re-entry heating and the new aero model combine to make Eve way the heck harder than it was with FAR + DRE.
But after some experimenting, I found out that radiators are complete magic, so to the pantheon of MOAR BOOSTERS, MOAR STRUTS, and MOAR INTAKES, I have now added MOAR RADIATORS. They let me horse a 400-tonne spaceplane through Eve entry without needing to use heatshields. Said spaceplane is, of course, capable of going back to low Eve orbit. Here she is in the hangar:
Still haven't quite worked out how to get it there in the first place, though. I've been using Hyperedit to test the entry/exit profiles.
But after some experimenting, I found out that radiators are complete magic, so to the pantheon of MOAR BOOSTERS, MOAR STRUTS, and MOAR INTAKES, I have now added MOAR RADIATORS. They let me horse a 400-tonne spaceplane through Eve entry without needing to use heatshields. Said spaceplane is, of course, capable of going back to low Eve orbit. Here she is in the hangar:
Still haven't quite worked out how to get it there in the first place, though. I've been using Hyperedit to test the entry/exit profiles.
Strawberry
Dessert Faerie
- Location
- Derbyshire, UK
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- She/Her
Detachable booster stage? I tend to use KAS for strutting but I've found they work sometimes. Have to get the weighting just right though.
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More than one, probably. This is what I got up to last time around:
That was a smaller lander; engines were more efficient and the specific impulse worked differently with altitude back then, so I had to upsize here.
Mechanis
Confirmed Extremely Screwed
- Location
- Absconding with Alacrity
you could always pick up EPL and ship it into orbit as disassembled parts~
I use that pretty extensively- and not just because it simplifies logistics, it also helps cut down on part-count for large mission vessels like my usual Jool Explorer (a massive beast shoved around by a triple-cluster of ct65 engines) which hits Jool and all its moons with disposable probes- it really cuts down on the required size and partcount-in-load to build the probes one at a time, so there's only ever one and the Explorer in the same zone.
I use that pretty extensively- and not just because it simplifies logistics, it also helps cut down on part-count for large mission vessels like my usual Jool Explorer (a massive beast shoved around by a triple-cluster of ct65 engines) which hits Jool and all its moons with disposable probes- it really cuts down on the required size and partcount-in-load to build the probes one at a time, so there's only ever one and the Explorer in the same zone.
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I could, but I ain't gonna.
Mission subcomponents:
Kerbin reentry vehicle/lander:
Orbital refueling drone:
Resource scanning satellite:
ISRU assembly:
Rovers:
Main transport jeep:
Science Jr jeep:
Science Jr jeep:
Eve lander:
Plan view:
Rear view, showing the cargo ramps & rovers:
Underside, showing the ISRU bay:
Rear view, showing the cargo ramps & rovers:
Underside, showing the ISRU bay:
Recoverable booster:
Launch assembly:
Dorsal top, showing payloads enclosed in fairings:
It's so tall the VAB camera won't actually let me show the whole thing at once, so here's the dorsal bottom:
Ventral top:
Ventral bottom:
It's so tall the VAB camera won't actually let me show the whole thing at once, so here's the dorsal bottom:
Ventral top:
Ventral bottom:
Next up: Launch.
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Mechanis
Confirmed Extremely Screwed
- Location
- Absconding with Alacrity
do tell us how may times that thing explodes on the pad, makes a u-turn into the ground at <1000 feet, spontaneously disintegrates for no reason at all, and so on, preferably with pictures. I need my daily dose of schadenfreude.
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None. I know what I'm doing.
Flight sequence:
On the pad:
Liftoff:
Initial climb:
Turn:
Power down & fairing jet:
Power down 2 & horizontal burn:
Booster cutoff:
Orbit insertion:
Orbit:
Next up: Some ship reconfiguration.
(I had more problems uploading and posting this then I had flying the launch. It wasn't quite as smooth as I would've liked -- I would've preferred to class it up with a continuous burn -- but it'll do.
)
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Orbital reconfiguration:
(I did in this order because doing the reconfig before jettisoning the boosters messes up my staging in new and exciting ways)
Preliminaries:
Booster jettison:
Refueling drone docking sequence:
Scansat docking sequence:
Final stack, after pumping fuel to the outboard tanks to make KER provide accurate delta-V readings:
Next stop: Not Eve. We're going to Minmus.
Also I'll probably deorbit those boosters at some point to avoid needless orbital clutter and also to recover those annoyingly expensive Mammoth engines.
(I did in this order because doing the reconfig before jettisoning the boosters messes up my staging in new and exciting ways)
Preliminaries:
Accident prevention:
Aligning to normal vector:
Aligning to normal vector:
Booster jettison:
Refueling drone docking sequence:
Undocking:
Attitude change:
Lateral translation:
Circle herding:
Aligned:
Docked:
Attitude change:
Lateral translation:
Circle herding:
Aligned:
Docked:
Scansat docking sequence:
Undocking:
Attitude change:
Lateral translation:
Circle herding:
Aligned (well, close enough):
Docked:
Attitude change:
Lateral translation:
Circle herding:
Aligned (well, close enough):
Docked:
Final stack, after pumping fuel to the outboard tanks to make KER provide accurate delta-V readings:
Next stop: Not Eve. We're going to Minmus.
Also I'll probably deorbit those boosters at some point to avoid needless orbital clutter and also to recover those annoyingly expensive Mammoth engines.
Strawberry
Dessert Faerie
- Location
- Derbyshire, UK
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Holy shit Foamy. That's insane.
I need to rebuild my install. I tried using CKAN to do mods as I was getting rather a lot of them, but the damned thing never frigging works
I need to rebuild my install. I tried using CKAN to do mods as I was getting rather a lot of them, but the damned thing never frigging works