Kerbal Space Program

[Xathan]

So I thought I'd share the craft that made my first Mun landing that remained upright and was able to return to Kerbin

[spoiler][/spoiler]

I may have gone a little bit overboard in my attempts to manage a stable landing. Current project is to modify this monster for some rescue missions for the people I left stranded there from earlier missions.

[sparkletwist]

That is a quite impressive craft. It must have taken quite the launch vehicle to get that thing off of Kerbin!

My first Mun mission had a lot of trouble, too. I had to send a second lander with some fuel to help the stranded lander take off. The Kerbal Attachment System mod was invaluable here, because it let me actually attach a fuel port and transfer fuel over through a pipe that the Kerbals walking around set up. The goal of my second Mun landing was, as such, "get to the Mun and back without needing a rescue mission." The Kerbal krew did accomplish that goal, although it involved crashing their ship on Kerbin-- it was an ion-powered craft that was never meant to land on planets. But nobody had to come rescue them! And as Jeb put it, "Who cares? You know you were going to build a new one anyway." Considering their tendency to get stuck on the Mun anyway, the Kerbals are now considering establishing some kind of a permanent base on the Mun.

At present, I've got a probe on the way to Eve and have sent an orbital probe and an unmanned lander to Minmus. Of course, the unmanned missions went off without any trouble, it's only when there are Kerbals involved that things start to go wrong.

[Xathan]

That is a quite impressive craft. It must have taken quite the launch vehicle to get that thing off of Kerbin!

Thanks! It did; the Herakles IV was the launch vehicle, which uses entirely rockomax parts, 4 stages not counting the lander, has a total of 15 fuel tanks and So. Many. Struts. I think a more skilled player than I who could manage it more efficiently could manage some impressive stunts with it. As proof of its might, I took off the lander, stuck a probe core on it, and flew one into the sun. And that was the Herakles III, which had slightly less thrust than the IV.

My first Mun mission had a lot of trouble, too. I had to send a second lander with some fuel to help the stranded lander take off. The Kerbal Attachment System mod was invaluable here, because it let me actually attach a fuel port and transfer fuel over through a pipe that the Kerbals walking around set up. The goal of my second Mun landing was, as such, "get to the Mun and back without needing a rescue mission." The Kerbal krew did accomplish that goal, although it involved crashing their ship on Kerbin-- it was an ion-powered craft that was never meant to land on planets. But nobody had to come rescue them! And as Jeb put it, "Who cares? You know you were going to build a new one anyway." Considering their tendency to get stuck on the Mun anyway, the Kerbals are now considering establishing some kind of a permanent base on the Mun

Jeb is a boss. I'm impressed you managed it on your second go! Especially with such a complex setup. It took me several tries to land and make a round trip. Ion engines in this game make me happy.

KAS the mod sounds really interesting - how hard is it to use? I'd love to have some use for EVA. What other mods do you use?

At present, I've got a probe on the way to Eve and have sent an orbital probe and an unmanned lander to Minmus. Of course, the unmanned missions went off without any trouble, it's only when there are Kerbals involved that things start to go wrong.

Man, I am impressed. I managed to get a probe to flyby Eve, but it didn't arrive with enough delta V to stop.

I've noticed that, too. I think it's partially because we care more when Kerbals are involved, so get nervous and make mistakes? Or maybe it's just that Kerbals are, well, Kerbals.

[Nomadic]

I give you my latest madness inspired construction:

[spoiler]

[/spoiler]

Also as an aside:
[spoiler]
I discovered a mod that adds MFDs to IVA mode. I'm so happy, just check out the beauty of this:


[/spoiler]

[Xathan]

Ooo, that data in your cockpit - what mod gives you that? Because I want it, so badly.

That station is insane. I try to picture how some of that stuff got on there (especially the two parts that look like they're brushing up against each other) and my brain pulls a "nope." How long did that take?

[Nomadic]

Ooo, that data in your cockpit - what mod gives you that? Because I want it, so badly.

That station is insane. I try to picture how some of that stuff got on there (especially the two parts that look like they're brushing up against each other) and my brain pulls a "nope." How long did that take?

I'm using the KSI skin for RasterPropMonitor, it's amazing. It has several things in it for 3rd party mods so if you really want you can have the MFDs bring up camera views or satellite maps assuming you have the appropriate mods installed.

The station is 7 parts most of which were easy to get hooked up. Like you said the hardest part is the lowest down section in the image. For that I had the panels retracted, slid it in so I was almost but not quite docked, then used the gyros+caps lock to spin it down inch by inch until it was as close as I dared before docking. Only problem that I realized later is that the docking port cover is close enough to clip with the hitchhiker module next to it. Unfortunately there's nothing I can do about it at this stage and clipping doesn't actually cause any problems so it's just a visual annoyance.

[sparkletwist]

With the 0.90 update I've picked this game back up again.

I've got a probe to Eve and a manned mission to Minmus on their way, but they're many days away and I haven't warped ahead because I'm messing around with other stuff, so they're not that interesting yet.

My big accomplishment lately was successfully getting a SSTO "jetrocket" (i.e., using jet engines to get to the upper atmosphere, then switching to rocket engines) up into orbit. It can't really carry much payload, so I'll have to work on that-- but at least it got up there. Now I'll have to figure out how to land the thing...

[Llum]

Out of curiosity, how much math is required to play this game?

[Hibou]

Not a ton. You can get mods that will add some things but for the most part it's pretty basic.

[sparkletwist]

I agree. I tend to just eyeball it most of the time and use MechJeb to help me with the fiddly parts, and I do fine.

Something possessed me to not equip the jetrocket with any sort of parachutes, and just try to land it via rocket thrust like it was some sort of moon lander. Which didn't go very well considering how difficult the thing was to control-- I didn't really build it with aeronautics in mind. Two aborted attempts resulted in catastrophic failure, and I eventually landed it so that pieces merely broke off instead of the entire thing exploding. Good enough. "If you're going for reusability, you have to bring us back something we can actually reuse" is certainly what the Kerbal engineers were saying... but still not bad for a first flight.

[sparkletwist]

My manned (kerbaled?) mission to Minmus has landed.
[spoiler=Minmus Mission][/spoiler]

Rather than a direct ascent style craft, I went with a separate lander this time. I used a slightly bigger upper stage that had enough fuel in it to be able to establish an orbit around Minmus, and dumped it there. This meant I could avoid some messing around with docking and such.

[Xathan]

As we discussed in IRC, I really like the method you used to get to Minmus. Did you leave the upper stage in orbit, or did you frist get sub-orbital and let it crash into Minmus?

[sparkletwist]

It's still orbiting Minmus. Space junk!

Lately I've been looking into more sustainable/reusable ways to launch things into orbit. My SSTO jetrocket is pretty good for ferrying kerbals back and forth, and is capable of launching small satellites, but won't be able to launch anything big at all. My next goal is to put a base on the Mun so I'm going to need to launch something pretty big, too.

[sparkletwist]

1.0 is out.  :yumm:

[Xathan]

Had a blast playing it yesterday. :yumm:

I've found that the new aerodynamics model fun to play with. I've found some of the larger rockets, like those using rockomax parts, to be a beast and a half to turn while still in the thicker parts in atmo. I know the ideal gravity turn now is to start turning as you launch, but unless I try to turn when higher up I just flip, even from a tiny turn. Having to actually worry about re-entry heating is a whole new kind of challenge, especially with the heat shields being bugged and having no mass (If you watch in the VAB when adding heat shields, your COM doesn't change at all) so my return craft have an an annoying tendency to want to go in capsule-first into re-entry heat, which has almost cost me Valentina twice now. The fact that I usually stop getting re-entry effects at or under 8000 M makes coming back to Kerbin very harrowing - at one point, didn't pop chutes until only about 1000 m, only to discover that I hadn't opened the new capsule that my chutes were in, and barely got it open before having to resort to a lithobreaking maneuver.

Speaking of Valentina, I love the new female kerbal models - squad did a great job there. Also, the new tech tree is so much more intuitive, which makes me extremely happy.