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uXs posted:Addendum: That's the last time I trust a sketchy online tutorial instead of my own blasted instincts. "Why would I fire away from the target? Oh well, maybe there's a UI reason." No, it really was just that simple. Of course, having to get within 250m (not 2500, for what reasons I can't fathom) before I could switch to the marooned Kerbal made things a little spicier, but that was no problem first try, launch, 1 burn to circularize, 1 burn to intercept to get within 1 km, one 30 m/s burn to bring me to 150 m with 0.1 m/s relative velocity, done. I feel really dumb now.  On to... *checks mission list* Building a station? Bugger that, I'm going to do a one-kerbal manned Munar flyby, and just so I can be the prettiest princess I'll do it as a free return. *grumble*
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Dec 31, 2014 21:39
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This is the perfect argument for putting dV measures in the game proper. Squad, I know you don't want this game to become Rocket Science, the part-time job, but isn't that exactly what it becomes when this is the only way of figuring out if you can get to Duna or not?
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Dec 31, 2014 22:38
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Mukaikubo posted:That's the last time I trust a sketchy online tutorial instead of my own blasted instincts. "Why would I fire away from the target? Oh well, maybe there's a UI reason." No, it really was just that simple. Sweet, glad I could help 
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Dec 31, 2014 23:07
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Icon Of Sin posted:Abyssal Lurker did a jet pack return from Gilly in an earlier version of this game. That was Scott Manley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDLBTvpzf_s
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Dec 31, 2014 23:56
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Protip: If you are sending a single-seater vessel up on a rescue mission then make sure that the capsule is empty of joyriders before you successfully pull off the intercept the rescued kerbonaut tries to board. Lamery: Switch places with me bro. Jeb: But... Lamery: Wait right here, I promise to put out an RFP for a rescue mission the moment I get back to KSC. withak fucked around with this message at 00:28 on Jan 1, 2015 |
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Jan 1, 2015 00:14
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Landing a probe on Eve with Deadly Reentry and FAR is really hard, you guys. It took me five reloads to find the exact right entry window, and even then, it was only like 1200m off the ground by the time it was going slowly enough to deploy the parachute. The probe's velocity was actually increasing even as low as 15 km.  And then it turned out it was an
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Jan 1, 2015 04:04
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Flagrant Abuse posted:Landing a probe on Eve with Deadly Reentry and FAR is really hard, you guys. It took me five reloads to find the exact right entry window, and even then, it was only like 1200m off the ground by the time it was going slowly enough to deploy the parachute. The probe's velocity was actually increasing even as low as 15 km. That will have been missing lift I'd guess. The problem with FAR and DR isn't just the angle, the shape of the parts and the mass distribution become important too. There are so many variables to balance and few tools to help doing it. Nathenkell gave a good tip - use the mk1-2 capsule as it has an offset CoM and will generate lift as it comes in which will help it stay higher thus keeping the G forces down to tolerable. But if you add a lander plus whatever else to a big heatshield, it's nearly impossible to figure out what will happen until you toss it at a planet a few times at various angles. Add in FARs dynamic pressure calculations for extra fun times.
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Jan 1, 2015 05:20
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Overwined posted:This is the perfect argument for putting dV measures in the game proper. Squad, I know you don't want this game to become Rocket Science, the part-time job, but isn't that exactly what it becomes when this is the only way of figuring out if you can get to Duna or not? I'm not following your argument. You are not spending billions of dollars and man-hours making your rocket. Once you get to orbit, TWR has little meaning and Isp takes over. It is easy to add some extra fuel tanks for your 390 Isp chemical engine or 800 Isp NERVA. Made it to Duna, worried about getting back? If you burned about half your fuel getting there, you should have no problem getting back to Kerbin. If you don't have the fuel, send a tanker. Knowing how many delta-vees your rocket can put out isn't all that important unless your are hellbent on min-maxing your rocket design. Maybe Squad doesn't want the default game to be about min-maxing.
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Jan 1, 2015 07:20
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min-maxing your rocket is good, yes. But slapping together a rocket you think looks cool and might work, and launching it to see what happens is the best. What's safety?
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Jan 1, 2015 07:45
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I checked the mod list first, but is there a generally recommended mod that adds more scientific equipment? A bigger variety of experiments would be cool. Space telescopes, orbiters to map planets? Robots that can take samples?
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Jan 1, 2015 08:27
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Grand Fromage posted:I checked the mod list first, but is there a generally recommended mod that adds more scientific equipment? A bigger variety of experiments would be cool. Space telescopes, orbiters to map planets? Robots that can take samples? Get station science if you haven't. It provides a chunk of new experiments to run and many awesome/heavy parts to give you more reason to over engineer poo poo.
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Jan 1, 2015 08:52
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Ratzap posted:That will have been missing lift I'd guess. The problem with FAR and DR isn't just the angle, the shape of the parts and the mass distribution become important too. There are so many variables to balance and few tools to help doing it. Nathenkell gave a good tip - use the mk1-2 capsule as it has an offset CoM and will generate lift as it comes in which will help it stay higher thus keeping the G forces down to tolerable. But if you add a lander plus whatever else to a big heatshield, it's nearly impossible to figure out what will happen until you toss it at a planet a few times at various angles. Add in FARs dynamic pressure calculations for extra fun times. I've found using a lifting body type heat shield like Curiosity's helps, since it keeps you higher for longer, at least with small probes. Conical heat shield mod: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/91920
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Jan 1, 2015 08:52
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Palicgofueniczekt posted:Once you get to orbit, TWR has little meaning and Isp takes over. That's just not true; don't forget landing on your target, where TWR is pretty important! Higher TWR is also great for performing burns that don't take a quarter of your orbital period. Palicgofueniczekt posted:Made it to Duna, worried about getting back? If you burned about half your fuel getting there, you should have no problem getting back to Kerbin. Honestly, this is about as helpful as saying "if you bring infinite fuel, you'll be fine." There are two main problems with this reasoning. First, you need considerably less fuel on a return trip from Duna. Remember, it takes approximately 4550 m/s of delta-V to reach LKO, and (effectively) 0 to land if you have chutes and plotted your return injection burn correctly; it only takes about 1300 m/s delta-V to reach LD(una)O, but chutes are less effective due to Duna's thinner atmosphere. Not to mention that the first half of the trip uses more fuel because your payload (including the return trip's fuel) is larger. On the other side of things, if you've burned half of your fuel for an Eve landing, you probably still won't have enough to return. Second, if you haven't done delta-V calculations before you take off from Kerbin, you won't know if you'll have 50% of your fuel left until you've landed on Duna. Depending on how experienced you are, and if you know about transfer windows or not, it could take a few hours of real-life time until you know if you need to scrap your rocket and restart. And if you're not able to revert back to the start of the mission, you either have to wait for the next transfer window or deal with the fact that your second version of the mission may require a completely different amount of delta-V. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the most boring failure for me is when you run out of fuel partway through a long mission (occasional exceptions for when you run out of fuel on your final approach and crater into the dirt). It doesn't even have the benefit of being something like "Dark Souls" difficult, since I've always felt like the Souls games gave me the tools to analyze my failures. It'd be like if Dark Souls didn't have health bars for the enemies: you'll know you got pretty far fighting the Capra Demon, but you're not quite sure if you got halfway, or two-thirds of the way. It's also important to remember that "having enough delta-V for an optimally efficient mission" doesn't mean your mission will be a success. There are any of a hundred things that could go wrong (e.g. forgetting that the OKTO2 doesn't have a reaction wheel), but in many of those cases, some creativity can get you out of a bad situation (in the OKTO2 case, I changed the stack sequence mid-flight and then relied on a gimballing engine). It's extremely rare that running out of fuel gives you those opportunities for fun. Palicgofueniczekt posted:Knowing how many delta-vees your rocket can put out isn't all that important unless your are hellbent on min-maxing your rocket design. Maybe Squad doesn't want the default game to be about min-maxing. Then Squad probably shouldn't have designed a career system that explicitly rewards min-maxing, not just in money, but in gameplay; if you min-max your rocket, you'll be able to pull off more interesting and complex missions. It would be one thing if KSP only had sandbox mode, but with career, the game is pretty obvious about the fact that efficient rockets help you to "win". For people who just like playing it fast and loose with their rockets, sandbox is a great place to ignore delta-V calculations. More generally, I'd actually argue that most of the people who prefer not to have delta-V calculations in stock KSP are experienced players who've already spent a long time gaining an intuitive feel for how to design their rockets. As someone who only plays KSP occasionally, I never developed that intuition (nor do I have the patience to do so). I really think that hiding delta-V calculations for ships is actively hostile to newcomers, especially since the game already expects players to have a rough idea of what delta-V means. After all, KSP already shows delta-V for maneuver nodes. Bottom line, without Kerbal Engineer, I'd have the patience to play KSP for a couple of hours, tops.
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Jan 1, 2015 09:16
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immelman posted:I've found using a lifting body type heat shield like Curiosity's helps, since it keeps you higher for longer, at least with small probes.  I even had an RCS pod on top of the aeroshell to keep it as close to a 20-25 degree AoA as possible. Oh well, it still made it down, that's what matters.Grand Fromage posted:I checked the mod list first, but is there a generally recommended mod that adds more scientific equipment? A bigger variety of experiments would be cool. Space telescopes, orbiters to map planets? Robots that can take samples?
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Jan 1, 2015 09:59
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Grand Fromage posted:I checked the mod list first, but is there a generally recommended mod that adds more scientific equipment? A bigger variety of experiments would be cool. Space telescopes, orbiters to map planets? Robots that can take samples? ScanSat and DMagic Oribtal Science. There's also a telescope mod called CactEye iirc which adds working telescopes with a dedicated gui. communism bitch fucked around with this message at 15:23 on Jan 1, 2015 |
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Jan 1, 2015 12:11
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I was generalizing when I was replying about the whole getting to Duna thing. There was no reference to landing, having a injection burn orbiter and a separate land+rendezvous craft, or any of the other possible combinations. Sending a land and return mission to Duna and ballpark you don't have enough fuel? Divert to Ike? Land on Dina and transmit data back? Pick it up with a kerbal later? There are options. Edit: Career Mode isn't about min-maxing. Does min-maxing make it easier? Certainly. Just like other games have choices that become obvious in hindsight. I think Squad is working on balancing career mode to push players in the direction of simplified rocket design and gradually wading into deeper celestial waters. Corky Romanovsky fucked around with this message at 16:06 on Jan 1, 2015 |
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Jan 1, 2015 15:21
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Are you actively arguing against dV being in the stock game? Against there being more options under the false notion that giving players information will turn them off? I would have dropped KSP 498 hours ago (502 now) were it not for MechJeb's dV stat pane. And required dV is totally already in the game, in the form of maneuver nodes! Stock, KSP tells you how big your cup is, but to learn how big the bottle is you need to calculate like in that video. gently caress THAT, that makes no sense whatsoever. Queen_Combat fucked around with this message at 15:58 on Jan 1, 2015 |
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Jan 1, 2015 15:55
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I read the maneuver nodes as an astronomical on-ramp. It's my selected highway's vector and speed limit. Do players need it (edit; read: delta-v read outs) to complete the Duna Contract? Not in the slightest. Would it save some heartache for sending a discotheque to a Joolian moon? Certainly.
Corky Romanovsky fucked around with this message at 16:28 on Jan 1, 2015 |
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Jan 1, 2015 16:15
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I'm sorry that most of us can't intuitively feel how far a rocket can go and instead need numbers, but we're not all you. dV is absolutely needed unless you want to waste hours with trial and error, and that type of trial and error isn't fun.
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Jan 1, 2015 16:29
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Palicgofueniczekt posted:I read the maneuver nodes as an astronomical on-ramp. It's my selected highway's vector and speed limit. Do players need it (edit; read: delta-v read outs) to complete the Duna Contract? Not in the slightest. Would it save some heartache for sending a discotheque to a Joolian moon? Certainly. In this last thread we spent something like 20 pages discussing this. You're wrong, sorry. E: actually, why do people hate the idea of a dv display so much? If you're an experienced KSP player and hotshot rocket designer who prefers to design and execute their grand tours without a dv display, great, no-one's holding a gun to your head and forcing you to use it and its presence is not some sort of insult to your rocketry skills. Some people argue that it will intimidate newbies, but somehow they never make the same arguments about other things which we have actually seen confuse and intimidate newbies in this thread (the fact that m-nodes already display dv (while giving you no way of telling if your rocket can actually carry out the burn they plot), the fact that it uses "patched conics" as a term instead of, say, "orbit prediction", the seriously wonky aerodynamics and tech tree order, etc), and against that we have people pointing out that without the dv readout supplied by KER or MJ they would have lost interest in KSP as soon as they ran out of things to do in Kerbin SOI, if not sooner, because going interplanetary without dv and without being a hotshot rocket wizard is a total crapshoot. Is it just that some people really like Excel? That they've been so good at KSP, for so long, that they forget not everyone can accurately estimate dv from glancing at a rocket in the VAB? Did they really like 0.12, back when there was no solar system and all design and flight was by the seat of your pants, and indeed like it so much that they want to force everyone to play 0.12 style forever? What's the deal here? ToxicFrog fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Jan 1, 2015 |
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Jan 1, 2015 17:03
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I'm another of those people who would have stopped playing the game a long time ago without a mod that displays delta-v readouts. It's not even about min-maxing, it's about making the game not boring. loving up and having to restart due to bad design or bad piloting is fine, loving up and having to restart because I ran out of fuel halfway through a mission usually isn't. I could always just cheat in infinite fuel, but that isn't exactly very fun either. So this isn't just a content-free argument post, here's some pictures of an early issue I had while designing my Mun lander/orbiter combo. I jettisoned the fairings when I saw what it was doing, so I could get a better look at it.     Struts are your friend, folks. e: And yes, I did end up adding boosters later, this was just testing the upper stages.
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Jan 1, 2015 17:54
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Mister Bates posted:
Which one of the readouts told you something was wrong? 
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Jan 1, 2015 18:05
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^  Mister Bates posted:I'm another of those people who would have stopped playing the game a long time ago without a mod that displays delta-v readouts. It's not even about min-maxing, it's about making the game not boring. loving up and having to restart due to bad design or bad piloting is fine, loving up and having to restart because I ran out of fuel halfway through a mission usually isn't. I could always just cheat in infinite fuel, but that isn't exactly very fun either. Try using Kerbal Joint Reinforcement, the stock joints tend to be really flimsy and KJR also slowly ramps up the physics loading at the launch pad to keep poo poo like that from happening.
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Jan 1, 2015 18:25
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I want to use the nuclear rocket now that I've unlocked it, but the thing is too damned long to use any of the landing legs with. Any suggestions for designs to work around this?
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Jan 1, 2015 18:26
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Ciaphas posted:I want to use the nuclear rocket now that I've unlocked it, but the thing is too damned long to use any of the landing legs with. Any suggestions for designs to work around this? Use three and use the engine bells as your landing legs, or use girders/i-beams along the body of the engine so you have a lower mounting point for the legs.
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Jan 1, 2015 18:31
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Ciaphas posted:I want to use the nuclear rocket now that I've unlocked it, but the thing is too damned long to use any of the landing legs with. Any suggestions for designs to work around this? Mount the engines radially or Place them inside a fuel tank using inverted octagonal struts (mind the fairings clipping) or Attach the nuclear drive unit(s) separately via docking port(s), undock before landing.
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Jan 1, 2015 18:32
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I also just leave those big mothertruckin' engines in orbit, then dock with them later when I want to return
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Jan 1, 2015 18:40
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If having a Delta-v total readout push you to some sort of table-flipping rage, just have it hidden by default. Put a little checkbox in the options menu to enable advanced readouts.
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Jan 1, 2015 18:44
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Ciaphas posted:I want to use the nuclear rocket now that I've unlocked it, but the thing is too damned long to use any of the landing legs with. Any suggestions for designs to work around this? Nukes are almost never used for landing due to weight, low TWR, and the landing legs thing you mentioned. I think that the length issue was put in as a way on encourage users away from using them as a landing engine. You certainly can on smaller bodies like Minmus, but anything larger is going to need additional engineering to the point of being unwise in the bad run. They're ideal for interplanetary burns due to a high ISP, but anything else is going to have you burning for a LONG time to get to the same place. As oddium said, leaving them in orbit to be redocked to for a return home is usually the best course of action. Nothing wrong with the other suggestions, but I'd heavily recommend tossing on several parachutes if you're landing on something with an atmosphere.
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Jan 1, 2015 18:48
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Hey guys, palic was the same one arguing for twenty pages in the last thread. His argument.usually boils down to 'How dare you question the decisions made by the holy game developers!'. I wouldn't waste time arguing with him.
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Jan 1, 2015 18:50
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Groetgaffel posted:If having a Delta-v total readout push you to some sort of table-flipping rage, just have it hidden by default. To me it makes more sense to have it enabled by default so people know the option is there, or at least have the checkbox in the editor and easily accessible.
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Jan 1, 2015 18:51
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oddium posted:I also just leave those big mothertruckin' engines in orbit, then dock with them later when I want to return This. The nukes are too long and too heavy to be useful as a lander engine. They have a poo poo TWR, to boot. They are good for interplanetary maneuvers where TWR doesn't matter much, but Isp is critical. Nuke engines also have a pretty low Isp in atmosphere.
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Jan 1, 2015 18:53
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OK, so with the whole orbital rendezvous thing out of the wa, I've been cheerfully burning on my first career. Put a kerbal in orbit of the Mun and returned him (holy hell that's a lot of science if you just take crew reports often and have him pop his head out to do an eva report too), and finished the "explore the mun" and "explore minmus" contracts one cheap unmanned probe with a thermometer each. Pretty neat stuff. Now I need to figure out if I really wanna try to send someone to the Mun and return them before I start burning down the 'build an orbital station' missions and 'put satellites in these superprecise orbits' missions. Probably I'll orbit a 3-man capsule in a polar orbit to try to get some more science, and bring it down at the pole just so I can get one more tech before attacking one of those Big Missions. Random thoughts: Still modless. I mean, I'm literally a rocket scientist who does this and I do in fact just eyeball the vehicles in the VAB and estimate the dV and TWR available to each stage, and long non-KSP practice means I'm within 5-10% via mental calculation.... and that's not reasonable for sane people to expect. I will probably install a few mods before I start sending out interplanetary missions, though, just for convenience's sake.gently caress planes, and gently caress every single one of these 'take data above this random terrain feature halfway across the planet' missions. Hate hate hate hate hate. I'm a rocket man, not a filthy aerodynamicist!  And they clutter up my pretty list of available contracts something fierce.
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Jan 1, 2015 19:12
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I stopped caring about dV readouts, because just a simple amount of dV isn't good enough for me. I also want it per stage, and I also want TWR, apoapsis and periapsis, time to ap. and per., distance to surface, horizontal speed and vertical speed, ... basically everything that kerbal engineer shows. So I might as well just use kerbal engineer. Unless that becomes stock, but given the allergy Squad seems to have to showing numbers, I don't see that happening.
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Jan 1, 2015 19:13
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Mukaikubo posted:'put satellites in these superprecise orbits' I actually found these missions to be a lot more easy than I expected. They're forgiving enough that you can just eyeball it when you fix the parametres at the appropriate places, and they give a shittonne of money. I unlocked the entire 160-points part of the tech tree with a money->science program at the administration building and by doing three or four sattelite missions. On top of that I had like 400k funds to spare. The one thing to be cautious about, though, is to have the right orbit direction around Kerbin when you first send up the sattelite; that tripped me up a couple of times. Joda fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Jan 1, 2015 |
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Jan 1, 2015 19:29
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Splode posted:Hey guys, palic was the same one arguing for twenty pages in the last thread. His argument.usually boils down to 'How dare you question the decisions made by the holy game developers!'. I wouldn't waste time arguing with him. In a game with as active a mod community as this one theres not usually much reason to worry about dev decisions either. Do you want DV numbers? So many mods for that. Want a complete nerdy orbit calculator built in to your UI? Done. Want a billion steam gauges? Covered! Do you want to sit down and write out to the second a complete autopilot script for your entire flight? Done! KSP is the ultimate junction between aerospace nerds, programmers and public adoption, it is a modding perfect storm.
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Jan 1, 2015 19:46
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Mukaikubo posted:OK, so with the whole orbital rendezvous thing out of the wa, I've been cheerfully burning on my first career. Put a kerbal in orbit of the Mun and returned him (holy hell that's a lot of science if you just take crew reports often and have him pop his head out to do an eva report too), and finished the "explore the mun" and "explore minmus" contracts one cheap unmanned probe with a thermometer each. Pretty neat stuff. Now I need to figure out if I really wanna try to send someone to the Mun and return them before I start burning down the 'build an orbital station' missions and 'put satellites in these superprecise orbits' missions. Probably I'll orbit a 3-man capsule in a polar orbit to try to get some more science, and bring it down at the pole just so I can get one more tech before attacking one of those Big Missions. You don't need to wait until you leave Kerbins SOI to get mods, I just got orbital science and scansat and they are fantastic for getting extra science around kerbin and the mun, plus scansat gives you baller maps of all the biomes for you to visit and gives you a reason to build satellites. Gotta build up that science to unlock the high resolution mapping things. And if you get universal storage it works with orbital science to hide all your science stuff in little bays on your space ship so you don't have to have it all attached radially. Also, install CKAN and it will download and install the mods for you. I love how you can make satellites look good with a few mods 
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Jan 1, 2015 19:55
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uXs posted:I stopped caring about dV readouts, because just a simple amount of dV isn't good enough for me. I also want it per stage, and I also want TWR, apoapsis and periapsis, time to ap. and per., distance to surface, horizontal speed and vertical speed, ... basically everything that kerbal engineer shows. I find their dislike of providing data to the player particularly amusing once you start getting contracts to put satellites in specific orbits. Apoapsis: 7,192,125 meters Periapsis: 5,310,959 meters Inclination: 0 degrees Longitude of Acending Node: Undefined Argument of periapsis: 288.3 degrees With no indication of what your current orbit is, or any planning tools, because the maneuver nodes are locked entirely too far down the upgrade tree. 
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Jan 1, 2015 20:03
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MrYenko posted:I find their dislike of providing data to the player particularly amusing once you start getting contracts to put satellites in specific orbits. Ah but you get a nice sparkly orbit thing to match up with. Just stick your tongue out the best side and wing it till it goes 'ding! have cash' 
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Jan 1, 2015 20:07
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uXs posted:I stopped caring about dV readouts, because just a simple amount of dV isn't good enough for me. I also want it per stage, and I also want TWR, apoapsis and periapsis, time to ap. and per., distance to surface, horizontal speed and vertical speed, ... basically everything that kerbal engineer shows. Some of those are already in the game; Ap and Pe and time to both are shown in the map, and radar altimeter is available in most IVAs. They're just a pain in the rear end to get to.
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Jan 1, 2015 20:13
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