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Thanks, I'll check all those out. Although the out-of-box game really should make you feel like you're fighting against gravity rather than against the interface.
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Jul 10, 2017 05:09
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Is it just me or has Spacedock been broken as gently caress lately? I'm getting dialup download speeds in CKAN from their servers and trying to browse mods on the website just gets me a 500 Internal Error.
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Jul 10, 2017 09:09
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ToxicFrog posted:Kerbal Engineer displays all of this stuff in flight (and in the VAB). This guy knows what's up. Kerbal Engineer should just be stock imho. Lansdowne posted:As far as other UI / utility mods go, Kerbal Alarm Clock is a must have, but also check out Waypoint Manager and Precise Maneuver, all available on CKAN. There's another maneuver mod in CKAN right next to Precise Maneuver, check them both out and see what you like best. I couldn't agree more with the original complaint, a lot of this is basic information that is hidden for no good reason at all. Altitude above terrain? Nah, you should just know how high this mountain is just by looking at it. And not being able to stage in map mode is still dumb.
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Jul 10, 2017 11:04
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CrazyTolradi posted:Is it just me or has Spacedock been broken as gently caress lately? I'm getting dialup download speeds in CKAN from their servers and trying to browse mods on the website just gets me a 500 Internal Error. I got 22kbps average downloading one specific mod yesterday that was hosted at github.com and when it finished two hours later it was corrupted. It downloaded bunch of other mods fine though, including some that were also hosted at github.
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Jul 10, 2017 15:07
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Is there an in-game way of seeing exactly what angle you have to another craft, relative to the thing you're both orbiting? I'm making a comm sat constellation around the Mun and I want to have them at 120 degrees to each other. Right now I'm holding an actual protractor up to my screen but that's kinda dumb and also not as accurate as I would like. edit: Ooh never mind, Kerbal Engineer has a Phase Angle under its rendezvous tab. Perfecto! uXs fucked around with this message at 12:08 on Jul 13, 2017 |
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Jul 13, 2017 12:01
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Found my old 2013 pic folder. Looking at the images, I think that it is possible I'm getting worse at this, as time goes by.  Anyway, thought of posting some of them here too. Including some notes I had together with them, for context. 1. Back when I was dabbling with StretchySRB texture making..some of those textures were included in the mod in the end. Mu-4s  M-V  RS-24 Yars   Atlas-like tank texture   Copernicus   ---------- 2. Going out of Kerbin's orbit for some science. IPM Spark.      ---------- 3. Getting to the Mun Burn!  And burn complete!  Injection  Almost there!  Landed!  Cheese!  Ready for re-entry  And home sweet home!  ---------- 4. Making a RT (no 2 back then) network. 4 KSO sats feeding a polar relay station. Main relay placed in a 5000km circular orbit around kerbin. Equipped with 16 long range dishes (each one targeting a different celestial body) and 4 short range dishes that communicate with the KSO sats.  2tn KSO satellites in a box pattern, each one having 5 dishes and some omni directional antennas (one is enough but symmetry is pretty). The big dish is on the main relay, and the four others look at Kerbin - the satellite behind - mun and minmus.  And the grid produced.  ---------- 5. ST-01, a refueling depot in 320km LKO. It can service up to 10 ships at a time if needed.  From starboard to port: a. 70tn 3.75m monoprop tank module holding about 12,000 mono-propellant for RCS refueling. b. Science module with 2 labs and enough power for the whole station, sporting a 3,75m nuclear reactor and power generator. c. 250tn 5m lox module for refueling. Really a pain to bring up there and dock, but definitely worth it. d. Quad pod escape system for the kerbals working in the labs. The pods use small RCS thrusters for deorbiting and are equipped with a solar panel for power and heatshields/chutes for re-entry. Finally, docked behind the LOX module is a 20tn space tug using ion engines for station keeping and getting modules from low KO to the station. Here is how it looks.    There are two reasons for using ion thrusters instead of nuclear propulsion. a. With a 30-40tn payload and a mean isp of 5000s you get about 8,000 of dv. Enough for almost anything, from rescue missions to station assembly and interplanetary expeditions. b. With a little tweaking of module and RCS block positions, you easily get the same mixed and dry Center of Mass point. If the payload is balanced with an additional RCS block (while assembling as one piece in the VAB), you can ALWAYS translate with RCS perfectly with no wobble or rotation, thus making docking a pleasure instead of a chore. ---------- ps: The station might look small but looks are a little deceiving; the station hubs are up-sized to take 2.5m ports and the solar panels are from NFP, sporting more than twice the height of gigantors. For reference, here is the launcher used to send the LF/OX servicing tank up to LKO (so that the tug could install it to the station). The payload itself was around 250tons.  ---------- 6. Lastly, an interplanetary core module for a versatility marathon challenge competition back in 2013.   "Named Titania and weighting almost 28 tons, this long range OTV is designed for expandability, ease of use and good range with many payloads attached. The crew consists of 2 pilots that work in 6hr shifts in the cupola module, and spending the rest of their time in the luxury that their centrifugium habitat provides. The habitat can also entertain 3 more kerbals, for a total of five for the OTV. Power is provided by a trio of solar panels, designed to work with good efficiency even as far as the Jool system. Titania has its own RCS system, and a high efficiency thermal nuclear engine is used to provide about 3k Δv at a modest 0.6 TWR in vacuum. Lastly, scalability is provided by 5 docking ports, 2 for 2,5m modules and 3 for 1,25m." Dante80 fucked around with this message at 11:22 on Jul 14, 2017 |
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Jul 14, 2017 11:12
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Are there truly mod authors in the community that try to prevent their mods being used in modpacks via various licenses and etc? I started watching Scott Manleys Galileo series and wanted to see if there was a modpack for it, and i basically found a thread saying that it wasn't possible/legal/e-honorable to do because of "mod licenses". It sounds profoundly retarded and lovely, but before i get heavily triggered and meltdown really hard is there actually a good reason to try to put copyright licenses that prevent modpacks on your poo poo? Edit: I actually found a post explaining albeit really passive-aggressively and arrogantly why modpacks are a headache to mod makers. Triggering, meltdown and re-install averted, thank you for reading forums users. Dongattack fucked around with this message at 02:11 on Jul 18, 2017 |
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Jul 18, 2017 02:06
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Short/realtalk answer: no, ignore mod copyright/licences, because the author of ssj420sephiroth's khajit dick piercing mod is not going to actually do anything about you including it in a Khajit Alternate Skins Fetish MegaPack. Addendum to the above: do it without saying anything about it to avoid being harassed by white knights.
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Jul 18, 2017 02:14
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long answer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0gXomy5Dxw
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Jul 18, 2017 02:16
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here's a full list of mods you should use: either opm or galileo depending on taste/experience. environmental visual enhancements + the related extensions for opm or galileo surface lights scatterer distant object enhancement that one flag pack that gives you a kerbalized north korean flag more than that isn't necessary. if you install ker or mechjeb , you a bitchmade pussy.
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Jul 18, 2017 02:34
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I like how MechJeb gates its better features behind some tech tree unlocks. Makes me feel like I've earned 'em
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Jul 18, 2017 02:38
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Just got this game a few days ago as an earth birthday gift from my dad, and it's really, really cute! - Except I got caught up in the really long-winded hand-holdy tutorials and was getting frustrated with the game after the orbiting one - the final build a rocket step by step one glitched on me and didn't work, and I was ready to shelve the game for a while - but nah, I started a new game in career mode and just built three baby rockets and while they didn't make it out of orbit, I feel a lot happier! These mistakes will be mine, the designs will be mine, and damnit, I'm going to learn rocket science the hard way! .... How bad is career mode's margin of failure?
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Jul 18, 2017 07:39
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You can't really fail career mode. You could theoretically end up in a situation where you don't have enough money to build the rockets you need to complete any contracts and hit a dead end, but I think you'd have to actively try to end up in that situation.
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Jul 18, 2017 07:44
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StrixNebulosa posted:Just got this game a few days ago as an earth birthday gift from my dad, and it's really, really cute! - Except I got caught up in the really long-winded hand-holdy tutorials and was getting frustrated with the game after the orbiting one - the final build a rocket step by step one glitched on me and didn't work, and I was ready to shelve the game for a while - but nah, I started a new game in career mode and just built three baby rockets and while they didn't make it out of orbit, I feel a lot happier! These mistakes will be mine, the designs will be mine, and damnit, I'm going to learn rocket science the hard way! play on normal and you'll be fine. also DO NOT accept observational contracts, whatever you do. maybe try some once you're more experienced, but those things are a new player trap that need to be avoided at all costs. part test contracts should also be avoided. when you decide you want to try and land somewhere else, go to minmus first. mun is another new player trap; it has higher gravity than you think and trying to land there when you're new will likely lead to stranding yourself there. some people might consider that a rite of passage though, i dunno. and finally, when you re-enter the atmosphere of kerbin keep the periapsis at 40km or maybe even higher for the sake of safety. this may lead to you bouncing off the atmosphere once or twice before landing but it's better than coming in too steep and frying your kerbal. play cautiously and conservatively early on (in fact keep doing that later on too, nothing worse than loading a half-hour old quicksave because you hurfed yourself into the atmosphere and asploded).
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Jul 18, 2017 08:02
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financially racist posted:play on normal and you'll be fine. On normal, check! Do not take the observational contracts, check! ..... Don't take the part tests, uncheck. Whoops. I got two of 'em. How bad is the cancel penalty? Thanks for the advice! I'm trying not to get any of my little dudes killed, and so far I'm doing okay... Collateral Damage posted:You can't really fail career mode. You could theoretically end up in a situation where you don't have enough money to build the rockets you need to complete any contracts and hit a dead end, but I think you'd have to actively try to end up in that situation. Thank goodness. I know it's a vastly different game, but I've been doing a ton of Battle Brothers lately and there, uh, failure happens often unless you're super careful, and even then you might get wrecked. Hence the paranoia here! (Also I've managed to hit the red in Euro Truck Sim 2 multiple times, so, ahaha, I am bad with money in sim games.)
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Jul 18, 2017 08:08
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part contracts aren't the end of the world but can be irritating and sidetrack you from moving on to the real meat of the game. whether you should cancel depends on if you feel that you can do the contract. i'd say try to fulfill them first and just don't accept future ones until you're more comfortable. also i strongly recommend trying to stay with the stock vab for as long as possible. you can get really really far within that 30 part limit (good players can go just about anywhere within 30 parts really), and more importantly sticking to 30 parts will force you to be smart with how you build rockets. when i started playing, career mode wasn't a thing and all my rockets were horrible overbuilt overcomplicated monstrosities that were difficult to fly, and learning how to properly build when they introduced career mode was not easy. if you upgrade the vab too early, you are likely to teach yourself some bad habits regarding rocket building. DEEP STATE PLOT fucked around with this message at 08:28 on Jul 18, 2017 |
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Jul 18, 2017 08:24
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If you want to play with the tech tree but not have to worry about money, Science mode is the same as Career but without the money aspect. Also, install Kerbal Engineer Redux (KER). It gives you a ton of useful information that the game really should be giving you stock but the developers have been strangely opposed to including, stuff like thrust-to-weight ratio per stage, delta-V total and per stage, maneuver burn countdown, suicide burn countdown, etc. While destructive testing can be fun, I personally prefer to know that the death trap I'm building at least has the theoretical ability of performing its intended mission before putting it on the launch pad.
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Jul 18, 2017 08:31
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Collateral Damage posted:Also, install Kerbal Engineer Redux (KER). It gives you a ton of useful information that the game really should be giving you stock but the developers have been strangely opposed to including, stuff like thrust-to-weight ratio per stage, delta-V total and per stage, maneuver burn countdown, suicide burn countdown, etc. I, uh, I have no idea what any of that means. For now it'd only confuse me further as I'm still learning the various labels and bits and bobs - my knowledge of physics is stuff I barely remember from high-school, ahaha -- so in a sense this is a good learning opportunity. (It's me, I'm the layperson they've dumbed it down for.) I will note down which mod you're talking about though, so when I'm ready I'll get it! Also, regarding financial difficulty: if I get into it, I'll restart. It is a huge relief to hear that it's not so tight so I can go hogwild testing with things. In fact, I just successfully built a rocket that would get me into suborbital flight and back with goo data and a living pilot! Babby's  *the fourth one began to explode early when I pushed the thrust to max seconds after launch and then tried turning at the same time. Thank god for decouplers, or Jeb would not be here!
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Jul 18, 2017 09:13
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Thrust to weight ratio (TWR) is simply the amount of thrust your rocket's engines put out relative to how much it weighs. If it's below 1 it won't be able to lift its own weight and won't get off the pad. Delta-V (dV) is how much velocity change your rocket is capable of, given its current fuel, mass and engine efficiency. It's the "range to empty" on your dash.  To get to orbit your rocket needs to be capable of changing its velocity by approximately 4200 meters per second (spaceflight terms are always metric), give or take a few hundred depending on the design of your rocket.I think the fins on your rocket might be too far forward and causing instability. Move them to the bottom tank and you should be more stable. In the VAB, you have three buttons in the bottom left that show Center of Mass (CoM), Center of Lift (CoL) and Center of Thrust (CoT). CoM and CoL are the important ones. CoM should be a little bit ahead of CoL, or your rocket will want to flip over and fly rear end first. However if they're too far apart it might become hard to turn in the atmosphere, especially with larger rockets. Fins affect the CoL, and remember that the CoM will shift as you burn fuel and the tanks get lighter. (You can simulate this in the VAB by right clicking the tanks and removing fuel and seeing how the CoM indicator moves)
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Jul 18, 2017 10:29
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Unless something has changed, I thought ~3,400 dV was enough to make orbit with a decent ascent profile. I'd been using ~3,600 dV just for safety and making it fairly easily.
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Jul 18, 2017 11:20
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You're probably right. I haven't played a whole lot since the aero changes so I'm still pretty stuck in the old aero values.
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Jul 18, 2017 11:28
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Is it bad idea to move small parts like batteries and sensors inside of other larger parts like nosecones?
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Jul 18, 2017 13:02
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Not unless you need to right click then.
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Jul 18, 2017 13:06
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The 30 part limit became an issue for me when I wanted to load up on a lot of science. I almost certainly upgraded sooner than I needed to because my rockets were hopelessly complex until I remembered my efficient designs from before, but I usually load up with 4 each of goo, thermometer, and barometer. Each stage of an asparagus booster also costs 10 parts, so you can only practically get to two asparagus stages before hitting your part limit. I also ran out of money from upgrades and overcosted rockets and just trying to do science without a contact (i.e. Munar and Minmal flyby/orbits). Jeb is also stuck in a highly elliptical sub-munar orbit around Kerbin with about 250 science on his ship from my first Minmus landing/return. I'll probably send someone else to gather the same science because I think I'm going to need MechJeb to pull that rendezvous off.
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Jul 18, 2017 18:17
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Mr. Powers posted:Jeb is also stuck in a highly elliptical sub-munar orbit around Kerbin with about 250 science on his ship from my first Minmus landing/return. I'll probably send someone else to gather the same science because I think I'm going to need MechJeb to pull that rendezvous off. My Jeb is currently about year 2 into an ill-advised trip that was meant to hit Duna but MechJeb did a second burn and I didn't catch it until it was several seconds in. So I adjusted it to hit *something* and now they're doing some decade long orbit while I've been furiously teching up and spreading comm sats around the system and learning how to be more optimal in my designs. I probably should put together a mission to help catch him when he reaches Jool..
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Jul 18, 2017 18:25
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4100 dV for a beginner to get to LKO. You can shave another 800-1k off that number with experience, a better gravity turn, and better rocket designs. Something to shoot for! 
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Jul 18, 2017 18:30
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Toadsmash posted:4100 dV for a beginner to get to LKO. You can shave another 800-1k off that number with experience, a better gravity turn, and better rocket designs. Something to shoot for! My gravity turns have definitely improved but are still way suboptimal.
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Jul 18, 2017 18:37
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Do radiators help with reentry? I just returned a lander from Minmus and lost Science Jr, four each of goo, temp, and pressure. I was still on my engine stage burning retrograde, but the science jr. overheated and took out the service bay and heat shield. Maybe I would have been okay if I had dropped the engine stage and ridden the heat shield, though. Still got about 500 science from stored data.
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Jul 19, 2017 03:11
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If I remember correctly, radiators help with core temperature (either on the part they are on, neighboring parts or the whole vehicle - depending on the radiator). Re-entry heat produces mostly skin temperature. When your things blow up, it tends to be due to that. Ditching your engine stage while re-entering is almost always a good idea, especially when returning with 3000m/s. There are some situations where it makes sense to keep it though. You can use supersonic retro-propulsion to cool off the engine (the fuel flow helps with that), you can take advantage of excess Δv to break your speed for landing closer to KSC and you can also use it to control a series of shallow aerobraking maneuvers to either get to a 70x70 orbit so that you can land on KSC at will or rendevous with a LKO space station to dump some data in the lab for re-processing. Dante80 fucked around with this message at 03:25 on Jul 19, 2017 |
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Jul 19, 2017 03:18
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SinineSiil posted:Is it bad idea to move small parts like batteries and sensors inside of other larger parts like nosecones? A word of caution for heavily modded installs. Part clipping has bitten me hard a couple of times, due to bugs with some modded parts and the interactions between them. Its the feeling of loading a save and hearing a boom before the screen loads, then finding that half your space station is destroyed by a solar truss that you wanted to put flush on a science lab.
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Jul 19, 2017 03:31
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Mr. Powers posted:Do radiators help with reentry? I just returned a lander from Minmus and lost Science Jr, four each of goo, temp, and pressure. I was still on my engine stage burning retrograde, but the science jr. overheated and took out the service bay and heat shield. Maybe I would have been okay if I had dropped the engine stage and ridden the heat shield, though. Still got about 500 science from stored data. You really shouldn't count on a Science Jr surviving reentry unless it's inside something else, like a 2.5m cargo canister or clipped inside something bigger than itself. EDIT: It will enter Duna's atmosphere just fine.
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Jul 19, 2017 06:53
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Mr. Powers posted:My gravity turns have definitely improved but are still way suboptimal. Here's how I do it (using KER for time to apoapsis and dV) 1) Adjust rockets so you get about 1.8 - 1.9 TWR at launch 2) Launch - one quick tap to tilt very slightly east 3) When velocity hits about 180 m/s, start turning gently. Put your heading just on the edge of the prograde circle, and follow it until you hit about 45 degrees, which you should get to around 18,000m - 20,000m. I end up tapping the key maybe 1/2 times a second in this phase just to keep the heading. 4) Switch to orbital, and track prograde, burn until apoapsis gets to 75km, then cut engines. 5) Wait until >60km,then track prograde (orbit) If you have a powerful main engine, then wait for 'time to apoapsis' reach 20s, and throttle up until the time to apoapsis slows right down. For a lower power second stage (like a poodle) then start at ~30s to apoapsis. The closer you can get the time to apoapsis to 0 without going over, the more efficient the burn is. 6) Once periapsis hits 70km or so, apoapsis should be ~80km. If you care, warp to apoapsis and a small burn will get you perfectly circular. This should get you to LKO in about 3.5k dV. Here's my latest creation based on some awesome designs I found on the kerbal forum:   Miner & fuel shuttle. Mk I had command chairs in the bay, but they were a bit odd, couldn't start with a kerbal in, and the cubic strut holding them caused the ship to break up randomly. But a mk 1 lander pod fits in there nicely. Radiators are overkill, they only run at 13%, so small ones would do, and the solar panels are too highly angled. Also needs more docking ports at varying heights. The shuttle doesn't really carry enough fuel to refuel a station efficiently, but it's good enough to zip about and refill my little science flier (which does use a fair bit of part clipping)  They're all VTOL. You just need to remember to set 'control from here' on the probe core at the front before taking off as it defaults to the cockpit (which is correct for the initial launch). OzyMandrill fucked around with this message at 10:19 on Jul 19, 2017 |
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Jul 19, 2017 10:15
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Rule of thumb I always went by for TWR on launch is lower it until you stop getting the fancy visual wind effects around your rocket in low atmo, which for me has always worked out to about 1.5. If you do that, you'll never flip a rocket again and have an easy as hell time maneuvering as long as you don't completely flub having enough control authority in your design. Going supersonic (343m/s) at lower than about 10-15km will waste a lot of dV to aerodynamic resistance, and those wind effects are a really easy rule to go by. Slow down your acceleration profile until you don't get them anymore. I usually point straight up till 10 km altitude, then start a smooth turn that puts me accelerating 100% horizontal by 40-45 km. It took a good bit of trial and error to get the rate of turn right, but that leaves me with just enough vertical momentum to get a 75k apogee or so, which is what matters. I can make LKO on 3100-3300 dV pretty much every time in anything but the worst aerodynamics rockets.
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Jul 19, 2017 16:37
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Toadsmash posted:Rule of thumb I always went by for TWR on launch is lower it until you stop getting the fancy visual wind effects around your rocket in low atmo, which for me has always worked out to about 1.5. If you do that, you'll never flip a rocket again and have an easy as hell time maneuvering as long as you don't completely flub having enough control authority in your design. Going supersonic (343m/s) at lower than about 10-15km will waste a lot of dV to aerodynamic resistance, and those wind effects are a really easy rule to go by. Slow down your acceleration profile until you don't get them anymore. I typically follow the DasValdez launch profile, which is very similar to this one. 1.5 TWR on the pad. At ~2.5 km, have the "wingly-dingly thingie"'s left edge touching the straight up position on the Nav ball (so about 80 or 70 degrees, I think)? At ~5 km, be at 60 degrees At between 10 and 15 km, be at 45 degrees Keep going from there. Maintaining a 1.5 TWR via throttle is ideal, and pretty easy to do if you've got Kerbal Engineer or MechJeb installed.
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Jul 19, 2017 17:40
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Did you know there is a g-meter on the right side of the navball?
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Jul 19, 2017 22:05
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I usually start my turn immediately, aim for 45 degrees at 10km, and as close to fully horizontal as possible by 37 km, where I aim prograde. I honestly don't know if this is ideal, but it gets me into orbit. Edit: vvv mechjebs default ascent profile is from before the drag model changed and has too much up, I think. I haven't used mechjeb in a long time I guess someone might have updated it. Hats Wouldnt Fly fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Jul 19, 2017 |
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Jul 19, 2017 22:42
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I push the 'engage autopilot' button and press space.
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Jul 19, 2017 23:00
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uXs posted:I push the 'engage autopilot' button and press space. i mean, you do you, i just cannot fathom this being fun. i used to use mechjeb but stopped once i realized that it was just me letting the game jerk itself off while i did basically nothing. i find ksp a bajillion times more fun without mechjeb and would have likely stopped playing ages ago if i'd kept using it.
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Jul 19, 2017 23:08
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financially racist posted:i mean, you do you, i just cannot fathom this being fun. i used to use mechjeb but stopped once i realized that it was just me letting the game jerk itself off while i did basically nothing. i find ksp a bajillion times more fun without mechjeb and would have likely stopped playing ages ago if i'd kept using it. It's awesome for routine launches of samey sorts of ships (like refuelling ships) to the same orbits because that poo poo would be boring as gently caress otherwise.
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Jul 19, 2017 23:12
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Peas and Rice posted:It's awesome for routine launches of samey sorts of ships (like refuelling ships) to the same orbits because that poo poo would be boring as gently caress otherwise. Plus with stock settings, again, you have to unlock it. I believe the auto-ascent features are in the 550 science automation pack
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Jul 19, 2017 23:22
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