|
This is the craft I'm using to visit both Minmus and Mun: Here is my stupid ion scooter/mobile satellite:  So, how am I supposed to dock these two back together?  The main craft has the port on top and the scooter has it in front. Every attempt thus far has led into explosions.
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 09:09
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 30, 2024 17:14 |
|
|
I started using FAR because I wanted nosecones to do something.  Solid Poopsnake posted:I think the only thing to really be concerned about are mach effects, but I can't even remember how much of an issue that is. Pretty much zero. I guess there's a "Mach tuck" going through Mach 1, but I've never even noticed it to be honest. Beyond that I think your lift-to-drag ratio gets worse as you go faster, but it's not like that will cause a sudden catastrophic failure. It just factors in to how high and fast you can fly. Honestly, the stock turbojets are so powerful I think they let you ignore some of these nuances pretty effectively. If you can break Mach 1 in a 45-degree climb, a momentary pitching force of a few degrees isn't going to bother you. It's pretty easy to build a plane that can cruise at 1500+m/s at 22-25km, with trouble-free handling all the way up to that point.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 09:10
|
|
|
karl fungus posted:The main craft has the port on top and the scooter has it in front. Every attempt thus far has led into explosions. Launch them both into space and rendezvous in orbit.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 09:17
|
|
|
Is there a secret to ladders? Where possible, I ignore them and use jetpack. On Kerbin and Tylo and keep it simple. Specifically, it's really hard to get Kerbals to transition between ladders sometimes. I’m working on an Eve return craft and it’s the bane of my existence right now. e: You know what? gently caress ladders. I’m just going to put a lander can at the bottom of the ship and use the magic of the transfer function to warp the crew to/from the capsule. Platystemon fucked around with this message at 10:10 on Jan 27, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 09:42
|
|
|
Platystemon posted:Is there a secret to ladders? Where possible, I ignore them and use jetpack. On Kerbin and Tylo and keep it simple.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 10:56
|
|
|
Spaceplane ascents can be boring. I went to use the gents and when I came back some sneaky bugger nicked the engines! 
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 11:50
|
|
|
800peepee51doodoo posted:You're probably right, which is kind of why I was asking. I'm curious to see how Squad changes the aero profile in the 1.0 update - hopefully its not too rough on dummies like me who like to throw chunks of garbage into LKO with a bunch of strutted up orange tanks. Thing is, this poo poo gets old really fast. Kerbal Space Program is, after all, a game where you design rockets, and when you realise you can have an infinitely wide repeatable cluster of asparagus staging, the game loses a lot of its appeal. FAR adds new challenges, but it also offers solutions. Because it's pretty realistic, every problem you encounter can be solved by seeing how it was solved in reality, which is really cool! I personally don't like Deadly Re-entry because it adds challenges without offering as many solutions. You end up not being able to do interplanetary air breaking in many situations, which kind of sucks, and the design challenge is "stick on a heatshield". Thrilling.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 11:56
|
|
|
Cubey posted:That said, I'm not sold on FAR yet, mostly because of what it is doing to my rockets. I might just bin it and wait for Squad to update the aero instead. Are you using procedural fairings and nosecones? I had trouble with rockets too, until I realized these two fixed all my problems. From then on it's just begin your turn at 5,000m (because you can't turn as agressively) and enjoy!
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 13:09
|
|
|
Splode posted:Thing is, this poo poo gets old really fast. Kerbal Space Program is, after all, a game where you design rockets, and when you realise you can have an infinitely wide repeatable cluster of asparagus staging, the game loses a lot of its appeal. FAR adds new challenges, but it also offers solutions. Because it's pretty realistic, every problem you encounter can be solved by seeing how it was solved in reality, which is really cool! Spot on! And regarding reentry, I've found that FAR is reentry challenge enough on its own. Yesterday I was doing an aerobrake in Kerbin, coming from Duna, and had to reload, because all my scientific crap stuck on the side of the 3-man capsule got torn off from the insane speed I had. I reloaded, adjusted my trajectory, and made it home in one piece. Better than sticking frying pans on the bottom of my capsule.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 13:13
|
|
|
Inacio posted:Better than sticking frying pans on the bottom of my capsule. But then how are you going to cook your celebratory bacon when you land?
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 15:22
|
|
|
I used to be in the "ugh why would anyone use FAR, that just sounds like some finnicky hardmode BS" camp, but then I installed NEAR and procedural fairings and baby, I'm never going back to stock aero. We can all argue about the relative merits, but installing/uninstalling mods is easy! Just try it and see if you like it!
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 16:27
|
|
|
FAR/NEAR can be summed up very simply for me: Common sense says that pointy rockets should go better than lumpy ones and in stock they don't. Also dicking around with fairings is hardly a chore. Its a loving joy to see them explode and your solar panels unfurl, in stock its a total vanity thing rather than a pleasing design solution though.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 16:38
|
|
|
I like DR for the g-forces and the flaming bits that fall off your terrible spaceship. It adds more  to my game and that's always good.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 16:40
|
|
|
Re: FAR mach effects. There is a rare-but-real issue where rocket designs have a tendency to want to do a backflip during certain atmospheric transitions, particularly at about the first major transition / where you'd start to turn in stock. This can usually be remedied by throttling down through the trouble spot, but I assume it's another point where people just give up rather than realizing this is a real thing in physics and another interesting bit of why rocket design is hard. It does not affect every design, but I once found out my launcher preferred to somersault to signify its intent to begin its gravity turn. Eventually I just rebuilt it a little to accept this and on we went.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 17:25
|
|
ME
|
revdrkevind posted:Re: FAR mach effects. There is a rare-but-real issue where rocket designs have a tendency to want to do a backflip during certain atmospheric transitions, particularly at about the first major transition / where you'd start to turn in stock. This can usually be remedied by throttling down through the trouble spot, but I assume it's another point where people just give up rather than realizing this is a real thing in physics and another interesting bit of why rocket design is hard. It does not affect every design, but I once found out my launcher preferred to somersault to signify its intent to begin its gravity turn. Eventually I just rebuilt it a little to accept this and on we went. Yeah, this is the biggest issue I've ever had with FAR. I've also had poorly designed rockets lose control when going through Mach 1. It's annoying sometimes, but mostly it just requires a little redesign and it doesn't affect too badly. There's been a lot of times when I've done that backflip and just continued on to orbit with a little less dV.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 17:30
|
|
|
*AR also models lifting bodies, which means if you don't want your rocket to flip rear end over teakettle you need to consider CoL vs CoM and occasionally stick some fins to the first stage.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 17:43
|
|
|
FAR is harder in that side-bolting more mainsail stacks isn't a solution to every problem, but easier in that you can look at a Saturn V or 747 and see how to put together your tubes, wings and engines in a pretty much optimal way. Maybe it would be easier for brand new players who wouldn't have to unlearn strategies for dealing with stock aerodynamics? What I love about FAR is that I get to space a lot faster every time - after playing for a couple of years, liftoff is probably the least fun part of the game for me.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 17:54
|
|
|
Clark Nova posted:What I love about FAR is that I get to space a lot faster every time - after playing for a couple of years, liftoff is probably the least fun part of the game for me. Yeah my biggest hassle with FAR is that I've never managed to get MechJeb to do a proper ascent with FAR installed, it always overcooks the turn and the ship disintegrates. Flying every ascent by hand is pretty tedious, especially when you're starting a new save and have to do a dozen launches to get your RemoteTech network up and running.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 18:20
|
|
|
fatman1683 posted:Yeah my biggest hassle with FAR is that I've never managed to get MechJeb to do a proper ascent with FAR installed, it always overcooks the turn and the ship disintegrates. Flying every ascent by hand is pretty tedious, especially when you're starting a new save and have to do a dozen launches to get your RemoteTech network up and running. max 20m/s accel, limit angle of attack, lowest possible turn start(think it's 600 something) has worked well for me.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 18:27
|
|
|
Nalesh posted:max 20m/s accel, limit angle of attack, lowest possible turn start(think it's 600 something) has worked well for me. I concur. Sarbian has been slowly working on getting MJ and FAR to work better together and although it's still far (pun intended) from perfect, there are enough tools in MJ to make it function now.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 18:38
|
|
|
Nalesh posted:max 20m/s accel, limit angle of attack, lowest possible turn start(think it's 600 something) has worked well for me.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 18:50
|
|
|
I just have the automatic turn angle thing at the default with the bar dragged all the way to the right, it's something like 625. or something, and 5 degree aoa all the way up.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 18:57
|
|
|
revdrkevind posted:Re: FAR mach effects. There is a rare-but-real issue where rocket designs have a tendency to want to do a backflip during certain atmospheric transitions, particularly at about the first major transition / where you'd start to turn in stock. This can usually be remedied by throttling down through the trouble spot, but I assume it's another point where people just give up rather than realizing this is a real thing in physics and another interesting bit of why rocket design is hard. It does not affect every design, but I once found out my launcher preferred to somersault to signify its intent to begin its gravity turn. Eventually I just rebuilt it a little to accept this and on we went. 
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 20:15
|
|
|
I usually take it to 10k and then start my gravity turn
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 20:24
|
|
|
Acquire Currency! posted:I usually take it to 10k and then start my gravity turn In theory a well-built rocket should immediately turn a bit at launch, and that will accomplish all of its gravity turn, no other inputs needed on the ascent. Manley did a video of a full ascent without touching any keys, just one small kick over at the beginning, and at the end took the controls to adjust his orbit. Your results may vary. Wildly.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 20:31
|
|
|
revdrkevind posted:In theory a well-built rocket should immediately turn a bit at launch, and that will accomplish all of its gravity turn, no other inputs needed on the ascent. Yeah I made a habit out of that well over a year ago. A new career game would be a good place to learn
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 20:34
|
|
|
The thing that has stopped me from installing *AR is probably king of silly to most. Atmospheric density. *AR is meant to model aero more realistically etc. but it also messes with the atmosphere. As far as I'm concerned Kerbin has a thick, stratified atmosphere not an Earth like one. According to the devnotes the atmosphere is meant to be thinner in
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 20:58
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:Launch them both into space and rendezvous in orbit. Meh too hard      
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 21:24
|
|
|
Looks like Rockhound Kerman just wanted to feel the power between his legs...
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 22:34
|
|
|
I give most of my rockets the initial gravity turn tip just a few meters off of the pad. For longer/floppier designs, I wait a km or so to get into thinner air. Sub 4km/s dV launches to LKO are pretty nice, too.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 23:00
|
|
|
Often, when I give my rocket a kick on the pad, the trajectory ends up usually being a little too shallow. High efficiency low TWR second stage motor helped solve this problem. Making the gravity turn anywhere else made the trajectory WAY too steep, as it simply wasn't possible to safely bank over fast enough once the rocket had all that forward airspeed keeping it pointed straight
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2015 23:49
|
|
|
Ooh, reentry heat- that's awesome. Haven't seen any details on it yet, but Max- any chance we can get a long ionized glowing trail behind the ship, so we can zoom out and see it from a distance? Bonus points if parts start to leave a smoke trail when overheating. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XZgu7FStbw
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2015 04:32
|
|
|
quote:Other than that, I was able to get a feature I had to leave out a long time ago up to a nearly complete state now. I call it ‘TimeWarp-To’. Basically, it lets you select a point ahead of you in your trajectory, and have the game auto-warp up to that point as fast as is reasonable (given the time gap). That is from last weeks devnote tuesday, and thank god. I'm also really looking forward to re-entry heat actually doing something (I didn't find DR fun due to the small selection of heatshields). Unrelated, but I wonder if SpaceX will do a Kerbal update like NASA did? They've mentioned KSP specifically a few times and have made other references to it (playing game music during their streams and the like). More than that they clearly know how to market themselves and generate hype amongst nerds, and this would be a logical way to step up their game in this area.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2015 16:04
|
|
|
I should keep up more on the devnotes for next patch. First spaceplane parts from C7 and then others later, Arsonide's contract extensions, Roverdude's resource system, now Kerbal Alarm clock... Honestly we just need KAS, Kerbal Engineer readouts and I genuinely will not have to mod the base game at all.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2015 16:10
|
|
|
DelphiAegis posted:I should keep up more on the devnotes for next patch. First spaceplane parts from C7 and then others later, Arsonide's contract extensions, Roverdude's resource system, now Kerbal Alarm clock... Honestly we just need KAS, Kerbal Engineer readouts and I genuinely will not have to mod the base game at all. I'd like to see them adopt RLA Stockalike, Procedural Fairings and KW Rocketry as well, but yeah, their choice of mods to adopt so far has been awesome.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2015 16:13
|
|
|
They must be planning procedural fairings if they're updating the aero system. That might be my favorite mod for how simple and elegant it is.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2015 16:25
|
|
|
The note said that, by nature of the beast, the fairings would probably be procedural.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2015 16:45
|
|
|
Cubey posted:I'd like to see them adopt RLA Stockalike, Procedural Fairings and KW Rocketry as well, but yeah, their choice of mods to adopt so far has been awesome. They've already said procedurally-generated fairings are in. Not sure if they're actually absorbing the mod or just doing their own thing, but there will be fairings!
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2015 16:50
|
|
|
I hope they're still made of recycled cardboard :jebcrying:
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2015 16:51
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 30, 2024 17:14 |
|
|
I know it's overly picky to express this but I think it would be neat if there's options for different shapes for the fairings - one of the reasons I've generally favored KW Rocketry fairings over Procedural is that I like the angular look better than the egg shapes I've seen in screenshots of Procedural's fairings.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2015 17:13
|
|
