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How do you decide the interim between launches to evenly space out satellites? For instance, let's say I want 3 sats in a 1h15m33s orbit. Now what I thought I needed to do was to launch a satellite every 25m11s (aka divide by 3), but that leaves me with the sats spaced out in a 4-sat configuration - with a gap where the 4th one should be. So what was the correct math?
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May 25, 2015 13:25
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Sanctum posted:What about fuel transfer. And the claw can transfer fuel iirc.
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May 25, 2015 13:27
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double nine posted:How do you decide the interim between launches to evenly space out satellites? For instance, let's say I want 3 sats in a 1h15m33s orbit. Now what I thought I needed to do was to launch a satellite every 25m11s (aka divide by 3), but that leaves me with the sats spaced out in a 4-sat configuration - with a gap where the 4th one should be. So what was the correct math? You need to account for how much the planet rotates in the time between launches, I think. The easy way is just to check what the offset angle is in initial apoapsis relative to the space center and then count in angles instead of time. I haven't done this in a while so I might be mistaken about something, but I think this was it. Edit: Another, easier way to set up equally spaced satellites is to first launch all of them into an equal orbit, lower than the target orbit (higher works too, but they need to be equal) and then keep an eye on their longitude coordinate with kerbal engineer or mechjeb, and then transfer them one at a time to the target orbit when they are at the desired increment of longitude angle (For example 0, 90, 180, 270 for four equally spaced satellites) This way the rotation of the planet is not a factor. TheKnife fucked around with this message at 13:44 on May 25, 2015 |
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May 25, 2015 13:37
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Sanctum posted:What about fuel transfer. If you can't get docking to work, you could just use KAS and connect them with pipes.
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May 25, 2015 13:44
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Collateral Damage posted:Hold Alt while placing your part to disable surface attachment and force the part to node attach.  Collateral Damage posted:And the claw can transfer fuel iirc.
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May 25, 2015 13:45
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A kerbal day is 6 hours, which makes it pretty easy to calculate, since that means planet will rotate 1 degree per minute. When positioning satellites I usually just launch them all on the same rocket, put them in an eliptical parking orbit then circularize at the right times. So if you wanted to put them 25 minutes apart, have the parking orbit 5 minutes off from the target orbit and circularize one every 5 orbits.
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May 25, 2015 13:45
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uXs posted:Ok quick question: if I want to go to something and get into orbit around it, it's best to approach it as close as possible, right? And do my burn as low as possible? Because that will take the lowest amount of delta-v? Pretty much, due to the Oberth effect the faster you are moving the more efficient your burn is going to be at your periapsis. Don't ignore inclination as well, a highly inclined trajectory during a Moho insertion burn is going to cost you a lot of DV.
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May 25, 2015 14:14
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Collateral Damage posted:Hold Alt while placing your part to disable surface attachment and force the part to node attach. What is the practical difference between surface and node attachment?
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May 25, 2015 15:25
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immelman posted:Pretty much, due to the Oberth effect the faster you are moving the more efficient your burn is going to be at your periapsis. Don't ignore inclination as well, a highly inclined trajectory during a Moho insertion burn is going to cost you a lot of DV. Only if you insist on circularizing to an equitorial orbit. If you just want to land, this isn't necessary.
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May 25, 2015 15:42
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eth0.n posted:Only if you insist on circularizing to an equitorial orbit. If you just want to land, this isn't necessary. What is the most efficient way to land? I've tried just falling straight down with a suicide burn, and doing the circularize->deorbit->land dance, but I'm not a good enough pilot to really tell which one is more efficient, and Mechjeb tends to favour safety over efficiency.
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May 25, 2015 15:59
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Probably using a small, efficient engine and going in horizontally like they did with Apollo. Edit: Starting to replay this yet again. Getting tired of having to grind out science 8-25 at a time just to get parts. Then the contracts are all less than ten. Do I just have to keep landing at different parts of Kerbin and collect samples? This is why I quit last time, i was tired of grinding science. Cojawfee fucked around with this message at 16:25 on May 25, 2015 |
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May 25, 2015 16:03
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Cojawfee posted:Probably using a small, efficient engine and going in horizontally like they did with Apollo. Would that mean burning retrograde above your landing site until your orbital speed is 0, then just dropping?
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May 25, 2015 16:07
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ToxicFrog posted:What is the most efficient way to land? If you get your Pe down to <craft radius + 0.01m>, burn retrograde to a stop and fall the last 10cm or so... E:^^^ yes, but you want to minimize your "falling" distance. EE: for clarity: "Pe" in terms of Above Ground Level. Corky Romanovsky fucked around with this message at 16:11 on May 25, 2015 |
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May 25, 2015 16:07
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Palicgofueniczekt posted:If you get your Pe down to <craft radius + 0.01m>, burn retrograde to a stop and fall the last 10cm or so... So the cheapest approach, then, is to get what is effectively a close flyby just above your landing site, then burn retrograde at Pe to land? Cheaper than either falling straight in, or transferring to a low orbit and then landing from there?
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May 25, 2015 16:11
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Ideally, on Minmus you would have a Pe a decimeter or two below the frozen flats, touching down on aircraft landing gear while feathering the breaks. E: ^^^ yes, but factoring in max acceleration often requires burning before Pe, with a gradual throttle down and tip up to vertical. Corky Romanovsky fucked around with this message at 16:18 on May 25, 2015 |
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May 25, 2015 16:16
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Cojawfee posted:Edit: Starting to replay this yet again. Getting tired of having to grind out science 8-25 at a time just to get parts. Then the contracts are all less than ten. Do I just have to keep landing at different parts of Kerbin and collect samples? This is why I quit last time, i was tired of grinding science. My first missions then consist of setting up a RemoteTech commsat network around Kerbin, Mun and Minmus and lay the groundwork for interplanetary exploration with orbital fuel stations and so on.
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May 25, 2015 16:32
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ToxicFrog posted:So the cheapest approach, then, is to get what is effectively a close flyby just above your landing site, then burn retrograde at Pe to land? Cheaper than either falling straight in, or transferring to a low orbit and then landing from there? Any thrusting done vertically is done so at huge losses to gravity. You want to minimise that as much as possible. Ideally entirely. Burning entirely horizontal just cancels out your orbital velocity. Burning out your velocity then falling, and then burning to stop requires you to cancel out your orbital velocity and then all the velocity you gained again from free falling. This costs a lot more.
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May 25, 2015 16:41
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ToxicFrog posted:What is the most efficient way to land? I've tried just falling straight down with a suicide burn, and doing the circularize->deorbit->land dance, but I'm not a good enough pilot to really tell which one is more efficient, and Mechjeb tends to favour safety over efficiency. Tavert over in the forums answered this question best I've seen, "Especially at low thrust-to-weight-ratio (TWR), it turns out to be more efficient to land along a completely horizontal trajectory (pitching up to prevent gravity from reducing your altitude) than the common wisdom of doing a pure-retrograde suicide burn." http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/39812-Landing-and-Takeoff-Delta-V-vs-TWR-and-specific-impulse
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May 25, 2015 16:41
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Shanakin posted:Any thrusting done vertically is done so at huge losses to gravity. You want to minimise that as much as possible. Ideally entirely. Burning entirely horizontal just cancels out your orbital velocity. When talking about "falling straight in", I'm not talking about doing this, but about doing the TLI burn so that I have an intercept that smacks into the moon, and then not burning again until it's suicide-burn time. That thread answers the question pretty well, although the result is really counterintuitive. I guess it makes sense when you think of it as the inverse of a takeoff burn, though -- absent atmospheric considerations, you want to burn just enough downwards to counteract gravity and put all the rest of your thrust into accelerating to orbital velocity.
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May 25, 2015 17:11
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How are you supposed to do the "put satellite in equatorial orbit with these dimensions" missions? I'm .5km off and .1 degree of elevation off and it won't take it but that's as close as I can get it.
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May 25, 2015 17:28
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Luigi Thirty posted:How are you supposed to do the "put satellite in equatorial orbit with these dimensions" missions? I'm .5km off and .1 degree of elevation off and it won't take it but that's as close as I can get it. Are you flying in the right direction? Also turn off all propulsion, maybe SAS too. And time acceleration.
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May 25, 2015 17:35
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Luigi Thirty posted:How are you supposed to do the "put satellite in equatorial orbit with these dimensions" missions? I'm .5km off and .1 degree of elevation off and it won't take it but that's as close as I can get it. Check the contract window. If orbital parameters aren't ticked off, you're going the wrong way and will need to launch a new satellite unless this one is insanely overengineered. If orbital parameters are ticked off, scroll down to make sure you aren't missing some additional part like a goo canister or an antenna. If those are all good and the only thing you're missing is "maintain stability", make sure your engines/RCS are off and that you don't have RT/kOS/MJ sending it control inputs.
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May 25, 2015 18:44
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Slywalker13 posted:What is the practical difference between surface and node attachment? Each part has multiple attach points. A "Node" attach point is hard-coded onto the piece/part - fuel tanks have 2 nodes (top, bottom) hubs have 6 nodes (top, bottom, front, back, left, right) etc. Surface attachment ignores nodes, and attaches whatever part you're attaching directly onto the surface of the target part, not using an attachment node.
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May 25, 2015 19:48
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Slywalker13 posted:What is the practical difference between surface and node attachment? Surface attachment can attach anywhere on the edge of the thing you're trying to attach to, while node attachment only attaches to the specific attachment nodes (the green balls), which are predefined by the part creator and can be anywhere, even away from the part's surface. Some things, like regular size docking ports, can be attached either way, and will sometimes attach to the surface even when there's an available node nearby, but its usually better to go for the node when you can, as surface attachments don't always work 100% properly on all parts - for example, the root of the attaching part can sometimes end up slightly below the surface of the part you're attaching to, which can be a problem for docking ports. A node attach, on the other hand, almost always behaves correctly unless the person who made the part screwed up the node.
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May 25, 2015 20:12
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Maxmaps, why no SA post about your new plushie and t-shirt? ----- Another weird physics related post from Reddit. PSA: Put nosecones or intakes offset on the bottom of your rocket engines. The TL;DR is that stock KSP seems to model drag based only on the Top-most-part and Bottom-most-part of your rocket - and if you put a nose cone on the bottom of your rocket (and offset it so it isn't blocking the exhaust) you'll see a dramatic reduction in drag. This link goes directly to the imgur gallery: http://imgur.com/a/mWQ0d
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May 25, 2015 20:41
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 Yes.. Good job Beaula.. You totally meant to park the craft in such a way it would break the two landing struts and thus be perfectly stable on this incline! Great thinking! It's just a shame that Tomwell over here is only a rank 2 engineer, and thus he is not qualified yet to repair said landing struts!  Wasn't planning on visiting nearby biomes anyway. Feh. Iceshade fucked around with this message at 20:49 on May 25, 2015 |
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May 25, 2015 20:42
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Cojawfee posted:Probably using a small, efficient engine and going in horizontally like they did with Apollo.
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May 25, 2015 21:39
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Send a satellite to survey Duna for ore and junk, got it into a polar orbit, aaaand... I forgot to put an antennae on it. 
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May 25, 2015 22:26
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I know my Kerbal game still weak, but drat this game is so good at making you feel good when you succeed. Last night I managed my first ever Mun landing and even though it was just this lovely probe with no way back, it felt loving magnificent. Today I've achieved a pretty precise orbit for a contract and now I'm off to see what's next!
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May 25, 2015 22:44
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My primitive rockets keep flipping over when I try to gravity turn, even at frustratingly gentle rates. What's the key here? Wait until a certain altitude? Move the center of lift lower? Higher? e: this is incredibly exasperating General Battuta fucked around with this message at 23:03 on May 25, 2015 |
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May 25, 2015 22:59
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So yesterday I decided to make a two-part Mun lander, mainly as an exercise in rendezvous. Made a minimalist lander with a probe core pilot and an empty lander can, sent it into orbit around the Mun, then launched a bigger 3-man pod command module to meet up with it. Had Bob EVA over to the lander, went down, harvested science, came back up. It all worked out surprisingly well, but it has me wondering if there's any real advantage do doing it that way, versus a more traditional single lander+return vehicle. (this is specifically in Science mode, not Career) I seemed to have plenty of leftover fuel in the command module on the return, but not much left in the lander's ascent stage once it rendezvoused, so it doesn't seem like there's much more I can shave off the lander. I think the biggest issue is that once you get back into orbit around the Mun, it doesn't take much more DV to get back on a return trajectory, so it's like, why not just have a little more fuel in your lander and come back in that. Is there anything I'm missing that lends an advantage to doing a two vehicle lander plan? e: General Battuta posted:My primitive rockets keep flipping over when I try to gravity turn, even at frustratingly gentle rates. What's the key here? Wait until a certain altitude? Move the center of lift lower? Higher? I don't know if this is just coincidence, but I was having an absolute bitch of a time with this until I unlocked payload fairings, which seems to have helped a lot. But that was around the same time I got bigger fuel tanks an started adding wings as fins, so maybe it was something else or a combination of all three. Wingnut Ninja fucked around with this message at 23:05 on May 25, 2015 |
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May 25, 2015 23:02
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General Battuta posted:My primitive rockets keep flipping over when I try to gravity turn, even at frustratingly gentle rates. What's the key here? Wait until a certain altitude? Move the center of lift lower? Higher? Or use a fuel balancing mod. Winglets near the base of your rocket helps too.
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May 25, 2015 23:04
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General Battuta posted:My primitive rockets keep flipping over when I try to gravity turn, even at frustratingly gentle rates. What's the key here? Wait until a certain altitude? Move the center of lift lower? Higher? Wings are super duper important, forgetting to put them on causes most of my flipping issues. Just stick 3-4 of them as low as you can on your rocket if you haven't already.
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May 25, 2015 23:05
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Done that. Could the issue be about CoM vs CoL? Should lift be above or below mass?
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May 25, 2015 23:06
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General Battuta posted:My primitive rockets keep flipping over when I try to gravity turn, even at frustratingly gentle rates. What's the key here? Wait until a certain altitude? Move the center of lift lower? Higher? As a general rule: if they're flipping forward they're too heavy at the front, too draggy at the back or you're going too slowly. If they're flipping backwards they're too heavy at the back, too draggy at the front or you're going too quickly.
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May 25, 2015 23:11
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Mass should be ahead of lift. Think a dart.
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May 25, 2015 23:12
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If you can unlock the articulated fins (AV-R8 Winglet) sticking a bunch of those on the base will fix flipping for all but the most dire payload aerodynamics. They make it control a little weird since they have a response lag, though.
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May 25, 2015 23:18
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haveblue posted:If you can unlock the articulated fins (AV-R8 Winglet) sticking a bunch of those on the base will fix flipping for all but the most dire payload aerodynamics. They make it control a little weird since they have a response lag, though. This is good advice. I usually stick a couple of these on a rocket regardless of necessity - it's easier to stick them on than to try without and regretting it. I've noticed that you don't need four, two will usually do fine if they are properly oriented, but that's an additional headache so only do it if you're bumping up against the part limit.
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May 25, 2015 23:31
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Wingnut Ninja posted:So yesterday I decided to make a two-part Mun lander, mainly as an exercise in rendezvous. Made a minimalist lander with a probe core pilot and an empty lander can, sent it into orbit around the Mun, then launched a bigger 3-man pod command module to meet up with it. Had Bob EVA over to the lander, went down, harvested science, came back up. It all worked out surprisingly well, but it has me wondering if there's any real advantage do doing it that way, versus a more traditional single lander+return vehicle. (this is specifically in Science mode, not Career) Or you can leave your go home fuel in orbit and just take enough to go down and up. e:and you can leave your parachutes up there for even more savings! Splicer fucked around with this message at 23:53 on May 25, 2015 |
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May 25, 2015 23:49
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Related question, if I build a launcher/lander combos in the vab I don't get an option to undock them, only to "uncouple node" (or decouple I forget). If I do this, the one I didn't decouple becomes unusable as a docking port. Am I doing something wrong?
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May 26, 2015 00:00
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