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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. Sure. I guess I just like building the rockets better than actually flying them. The only things I do manually is things the autopilot can't do, like docking. Well, that and managing the Kerbal Space Program. Contracts, making things that can do them, earning money, gathering science, creating communication networks, building space stations, planning interplanetary transfers, ... There's plenty of things to do besides awkwardly steering rockets into space!  edit: also manually doing maneuver nodes is so annoying, I much prefer letting MJ generate them for me.
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Jul 19, 2017 23:38
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i guess where i come at it is from a sense of satisfaction. when i finish building a huge-rear end space station like this: and i can look at it knowing that the dozen+ launches and maneuvers and docking procedures were done 100% by me, it is so much more satisfying than if i looked at that station knowing i let the game do all that for me. maybe i'm a weird edge case though, after all i am resistant to even upgrade the tracking station until i'm ready for duna stuff and i'm currently playing a career with science gains set to 30%.
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Jul 20, 2017 00:18
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Well, 100% by you... I dunno. Did you get out and push?
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Jul 20, 2017 00:20
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well in fact i've been known to have to push ships back home, including one really bad dres return failure that resulted in me getting out and pushing the capsule down to a kerbin atmospheric re-entry for over two hours 
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Jul 20, 2017 00:22
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financially racist posted:maybe i'm a weird edge case though, after all i am resistant to even upgrade the tracking station until i'm ready for duna stuff and i'm currently playing a career with science gains set to 30%. nothing weird about that at all, there are plenty of people who enjoy hard or extreme difficulties of games. with all that in mind I can see why you personally don't see much merit in mechjeb. For a normie such as myself it's quite nice (my first time playing through the game as well). Also wow did you make that station pre-Duna? probing literally every biome in the Kerbin system for science? that awesome!
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Jul 20, 2017 01:17
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Tracking station upgrade is done with funds, not science. E: ah, space station... Minmus and Mun have a lot of science. I think you can get the entire tech tree without leaving the Kerbin system on normal. If that screenshot is indeed from the 30% science play-through, easily believable with selective unlocking. Corky Romanovsky fucked around with this message at 01:31 on Jul 20, 2017 |
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Jul 20, 2017 01:23
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that ivy guy posted:nothing weird about that at all, there are plenty of people who enjoy hard or extreme difficulties of games. with all that in mind I can see why you personally don't see much merit in mechjeb. For a normie such as myself it's quite nice (my first time playing through the game as well). i don't consider myself to not be a 'normie'. on some level it's a case of once i knew how to play the game, mechjeb stopped mattering or being any fun at all. i'm not on the level of abyssal lurker or the real pros, i can't make a lander that uses srbs to land perfectly on moho or whatever insane poo poo people like that do, nor do i find the game 'extremely difficult' in my playing style at all. that ivy guy posted:Also wow did you make that station pre-Duna? probing literally every biome in the Kerbin system for science? that awesome! nah that station is from an old save. i've just now gotten to duna in my current game after landing about a dozen times total between mun and minmus. my thought behind turning science way down to 30% however was to force myself to explore more of mun and minmus, since i usually do like two minmus landings and don't even bother with mun, and then just go to duna and gilly from that point. wanted to make the progression feel a little more organic.
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Jul 20, 2017 01:30
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Wasn't there some talk about performance improvement unlocks to parts? That paired up with 30% science could make the game more interesting.
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Jul 20, 2017 01:36
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Corky Romanovsky posted:Wasn't there some talk about performance improvement unlocks to parts? That paired up with 30% science could make the game more interesting. The code for that actually did make it in, and parts can take advantage of it with a couple extra lines in their .cfg file. A bunch of the stock engines were going to be made upgradeable in 1.2 at the same time they got their art update but unfortunately Porkjet got the axe before that could happen.
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Jul 20, 2017 06:05
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i had no idea about that and now i'm heck of bummed that neither those upgrades not the improved art assets made it into the game
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Jul 20, 2017 08:19
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financially racist posted:i had no idea about that and now i'm heck of bummed that neither those upgrades not the improved art assets made it into the game I don't understand how they didn't improve the maneuver node creation widget at all before release. It's extremely awkward to use with overlapping elements, other widgets drawing on top of it and it often being too tiny to click on. And I've noticed lots of other stuff are unfinished/unpolished in this game. Factorio devs are complete opposite of KSP devs. They didn't just stop improving the player experience and the level of general polish once their game got wildly popular. They are even visually overhauling the whole game with upgraded art style even though it doesn't really matter to anyone who is already playing the game. Sininu fucked around with this message at 09:04 on Jul 20, 2017 |
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Jul 20, 2017 08:58
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Spaceplane chat: are they feasible to make without RAPIER engines?
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Jul 20, 2017 09:26
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Honestly I find that Mechjeb just doesn't work for a lot of the rockets I build, like it flips over or freaks out on rockets that I can easily get into the orbit I want. It's not even like they're unwieldy or not rocket shaped or whatever. On the other hand, once poo poo is actually in space MechJeb is pretty useful for automatically executing maneuver nodes. I guess at the end of the day I don't look at a perfectly planned set of maneuver nodes executed by computers and say "I didn't do that" because I sure as gently caress did. That's kind of like the CEO of a company saying "Yeah this company is good and all, but I would really feel it better if I could just spend every day working in the mailroom". KER is absolutely vital though and not putting dV in the base game is dumb.
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Jul 20, 2017 09:30
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double nine posted:Spaceplane chat: are they feasible to make without RAPIER engines? Yes, you just gotta put some actual rocket engines on too.
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Jul 20, 2017 09:33
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double nine posted:Spaceplane chat: are they feasible to make without RAPIER engines? I got my first one to orbit just the other day with 2x whiplash and 2x nukes. I had to fly at around 10k until I got to 1100m/s, then angle up and start the nukes. Apoapsis peaked at around 50km, but keep pointing 10 above prograde and burning and after a minute or so (and dipping down to like 45km) it made it. Rockets would probably do better but pure liquid fuel was quite simple to build (but handles like a brick if I'm honest). I even managed to land it on the runway many quicksaves later.
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Jul 20, 2017 10:19
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SinineSiil posted:I don't understand how they didn't improve the maneuver node creation widget at all before release. It's extremely awkward to use with overlapping elements, other widgets drawing on top of it and it often being too tiny to click on. And I've noticed lots of other stuff are unfinished/unpolished in this game. There were overhauls of stuff though. I remember rocket parts being upgraded (with the old versions dumped in a shed somewhere), and the space centre changed quite a few times. But yeah, there's some things that should be improved but aren't. I wouldn't dream of playing without Mechjeb's maneuver node editor, or without MJ's or KER's information (delta-v, orbit, surface, ...) windows. And the navball should _always_ be up by default, like why is hiding it even an option?!? edit: Special mention has to go to maneuver node placement. Dragging the little handles can at least be done with some semblance of finesse, but changing the position/timing of a node with stock controls is just outrageously terrible. Words cannot bescribe how bad that is. uXs fucked around with this message at 12:22 on Jul 20, 2017 |
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Jul 20, 2017 12:19
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Spanish Matlock posted:Honestly I find that Mechjeb just doesn't work for a lot of the rockets I build, like it flips over or freaks out on rockets that I can easily get into the orbit I want. It's not even like they're unwieldy or not rocket shaped or whatever. Successfully creating a Mechjeb-controllable craft is a challenge in and of itself. "Oh you use Mechjeb, you just hit spacebar - where's the fun in that?" I revert multiple times for every craft, tweaking it, massaging it, moving things around constantly trying to make it as easy to control in an automated way as possible. I use RCSBuildAid a LOT and spend 20-30 minutes messing with large crafts trying to get torque as minimal as possible. I look at weight distribution, I look at fuel-tank levels completely empty, half full, topped off, and see how the craft will react to different forces, different altitudes, different pressures. There's a lot of finessing required, and that's part of the fun. uXs posted:I guess I just like building the rockets better than actually flying them. 
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Jul 20, 2017 14:41
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double nine posted:Spaceplane chat: are they feasible to make without RAPIER engines? Yes, Whiplash jets are good enough. Then add nuclear engines to only use liquid fuel or regular rocket engines - the high ISP space engines like terrier work fine, when you need to turn it on it's already at 95% of the vacuum thrust/ISP parameters. It's not going to be enough to bring some mk 3 part monstrocity to orbit, but enough for 30-40 ton mk 2 part craft. Pyromancer fucked around with this message at 15:09 on Jul 20, 2017 |
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Jul 20, 2017 15:04
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Playing with and without MechJeb is like playing two different games. Without MechJeb you can get all sorts of weird designs into orbit with manual piloting and a minimum of control surfaces. Getting even a basic 1.25-meter rocket into orbit via Ascent Guidance that can do a Munar flyby, using MechJeb, requires adding control surfaces and/or really fiddling with TWR and other stuff you don't really need to think about at all when you're doing it by hand. I'm talking something as basic as a FLT-400 and Terrier on top of a 6x FL-T400 and a Swivel with two kickbacks. That design is tall enough that with MechJeb randomly deciding it needs to rotate right the gently caress now a millionth of a degree and then overcompensating for correction back and forth a million times before you hit 10km up, that if left alone it just flops around like a skyrim dick physics mod and shakes itself apart. That same craft, by just hitting t and z and space on the rocketpad will fly straight without any input (though of course not into an orbit until you make it start turning). MechJeb makes getting to orbit obnoxious. But once you're in space, it handles everything from docking and translation to interplanetary maneuvers really well and a lot faster and more accurate than I would do it. And it can't really do anything you don't know how to do yourself, because complex stuff like gravity assists are beyond it. MechJeb automates the grindy bits. I like that.
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Jul 20, 2017 16:54
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I dunno, I had to add fins in the beginning when I didn't have MJ because stuff kept flipping out. But after getting MJ on everything I don't have to do that anymore.
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Jul 20, 2017 17:13
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The only part of MechJeb I use is the maneuver planner, maneuver node editor and Smart rear end. I don't really like the ascent guidance, partly because it feels cheaty and partly because it often misbehaves.
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Jul 20, 2017 17:54
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Besides, I've got another mod to handle launches from the pad..that I can't remember the name off the top of my head. Iterative, modifiable ascent parameters, rarely misbehaves (and if it does it's because the rocket itself can't handle it).
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Jul 20, 2017 18:23
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uXs posted:Sure. I guess I just like building the rockets better than actually flying them. The only things I do manually is things the autopilot can't do, like docking. I don't like doing transfers and math is impossible wizard magic to me so I use mechjeb for that but I enjoy doing manual ascents.
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Jul 20, 2017 19:00
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I meant planning in the sense of "I want to go to Duna, let's add an Alarm to wait for the transfer window and use Mechjeb to set up the nodes." In the mean time, I guess I slightly overbuilt this rocket to get a comm sat into lowish Kerbol orbit (4 million km). It has 22.7km/s delta-v which is too much by about 13km/s as it turns out. Heh. I did use some math to get my comm sats (around Kerbin, Mün and Minmus) spaced out evenly, given their phases angle to each other and how long their orbital period is. That wasn't too bad and it works great. But for my Kerbol sats I'll just release them every X days depending on how many of them I want.
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Jul 20, 2017 21:25
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 Tsukino Usagi is a ridiculous, 3,000 dV craft delivered into Kerbin orbit by a Swivel and a pair of Thumpers, which then goes to Minmus and hops around — this the name Moon Rabbit — collecting science data. As you can see, it has wings — and the plan is to fly back to Kerbin and land at KSC.
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Jul 21, 2017 02:24
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double nine posted:Spaceplane chat: are they feasible to make without RAPIER engines? Yes. I really recommend this guys' content. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pq3UNZyLAJQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZuo4FFEY44 Dante80 fucked around with this message at 03:31 on Jul 21, 2017 |
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Jul 21, 2017 03:27
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My initial orbiter in my new career was just a bunch of FL-T200s and a Swivel, with one parachute per tonne of dry mass (8 tanks = 1 tonne, engine = 1.5 tonne). It went up, it orbited, it came back down and landed in the ocean. That was all with the parts from General Rocketry and Suvivability, which you can get enough science for after one or two Flea-and-science launches into the ocean just east of KSC.
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Jul 21, 2017 03:55
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thats my low tech ssto story
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Jul 21, 2017 04:02
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Dante80 posted:Yes. I really recommend this guys' content. drat that first spaceplane in that first video is sexy as all hell.
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Jul 21, 2017 06:03
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So. I want to make a comm sat constellation around Kerbol, at 3750000km or so. When should I launch my satellites so they're spread evenly? I was going to launch them every 72 degrees (for 5 sats) through Kerbin's orbit, but then realised that won't work at all. Rather, they should arrive every 72 degrees through the orbit the sats themselves will have around Kerbol. So given a target orbital period of 100 days (a bit faster than Moho, I'll calculate it more precisely later), they should arrive every 20 days. But if I just launch them every 20 days, it ignores what happens during the travel time because the earlier satellites will move faster during that time, but not as much as their final speed. Argh. How do I calculate this poo poo so they arrive at the correct time and place? Or maybe I should just wing it. :I
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Jul 21, 2017 12:29
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I have no idea of kerbol but for kerbin I put a craft into the desired circular orbit, note the orbital period in kerbal engineer, then fire prograde until my orbit is 6/5 of my desired orbit. then every orbit at the same point, launch a satellite probe. e - if you want to know the ap/pe or orbital period ahead of time, use a craft with infinite fuel/power to do the whole kerbin->kerbol->circularize->6/5ths maneuvre. A probe core with antenna & mainsail works well. double nine fucked around with this message at 12:57 on Jul 21, 2017 |
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Jul 21, 2017 12:46
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For Kerbin, the Mun, and Minmus, I just launched a bunch of satellites at once and corrected their spacing after they arrived, which is pretty easy to do when the orbital period is a few days max and adjusting orbits is cheap as poo poo. But I suspect the cost for adjusting low Kerbol orbit could be higher, and the orbital period is 100 days so I'd prefer to get it more or less right the first time. double nine posted:e - if you want to know the ap/pe or orbital period ahead of time, use a craft with infinite fuel/power to do the whole kerbin->kerbol->circularize->6/5ths maneuvre. A probe core with antenna & mainsail works well. Nah, I know how high I want to put them and I can calculate the period with this: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/11785-how-to-calculate-orbital-period/ I'm just not sure how the spacing will be affected by the speed differences in transit from Kerbin to the target orbits. They will be quicker the further they are, and that will have more effect the longer the transit actually is. Plus I don't think Kerbin has a perfectly circular orbit as well, that will also affect things. Edit: I guess poo poo like this will help: https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/16891/how-to-calculate-the-time-to-apoapsis-periapsis-given-the-orbital-elements. Seems like the formulas are out there, I just need to find the right ones to figure it out. It would be easier to just launch one every 19 days or whatever and correct it later, but man will I feel like hot poo poo when I do the calculations and it works out right away. uXs fucked around with this message at 13:14 on Jul 21, 2017 |
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Jul 21, 2017 12:58
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uXs posted:So. I want to make a comm sat constellation around Kerbol, at 3750000km or so. When should I launch my satellites so they're spread evenly? Winging it, or doing some math yourself is a fun way to approach this. If you are bored though, go here, put your desired stats in, and move on..it calculates everything. https://ryohpops.github.io/kspRemoteTechPlanner/ One mothership carrying all 5 sats is the surest way to do this. Dante80 fucked around with this message at 13:54 on Jul 21, 2017 |
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Jul 21, 2017 13:46
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Aside from the 1 or 2 keosynchronous commsat contracts the game gives you early on, I've stopped trying to space out equidistant satellites and have learned to love Molniya orbits for their ease of setup and providing an extremely forgiving commnet.
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Jul 21, 2017 14:06
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I actually figured out an easy method just now while brushing my teeth. There's nothing wrong with launching them all at the same time, or basically whenever. I'll just put like a day between them to give me some time to do the burns when I need to. What I do need to do is when the first one arrives at its PE, have it circularize. Then the second one doesn't circularize, but keeps its orbit just a bit larger, enough to arrive at its PE again when the phase angle between it and sat 1 is the angle I want. (72 for 5 sats for example.) That part is easy, I have the calculations in a spreadsheet and I just need to put in the orbital period of the first sat and the extra angles I need and out comes the orbital period the second sat needs. It won't take more or less delta-v because it's the same as circularizing in one go, I just do it in two smaller burns. The other sats are the same, but the first orbit that corrects the angle is just progressively larger. Easy peasy. Dante80 posted:Winging it, or doing some math yourself is a fun way to approach this. I don't get it. :I One mothership... maybe. Dunno if that'll be cheaper though, and I like my proposed method just fine. uXs fucked around with this message at 14:32 on Jul 21, 2017 |
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Jul 21, 2017 14:26
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Double mirrored Molniya orbits is the way I've done it since forever. As long as you don't get them on the same orbits you're fine, no need to dick around with perfect spacing.
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Jul 21, 2017 14:39
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You can send 1 engine instead of an engine for each. Should be cheaper as one launch if you like solids.
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Jul 21, 2017 14:39
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Corky Romanovsky posted:You can send 1 engine instead of an engine for each. Should be cheaper as one launch if you like solids. To do that I'd have to release the first one in its orbit, speed up (or slow down), wait an orbit, circularize again and release the second, and so on. That would take way longer than 5 launches. Also they wouldn't have an engine to correct their spacing later.
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Jul 21, 2017 14:53
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1 engine to get to about where you want them, then n-1 satellites with a tiny engine each to finalize. This is instead of n launch vehicles, each with stages I presume you are not recovering. 
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Jul 21, 2017 15:27
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uXs posted:To do that I'd have to release the first one in its orbit, speed up (or slow down), wait an orbit, circularize again and release the second, and so on. That would take way longer than 5 launches. Also they wouldn't have an engine to correct their spacing later. Alternatively, have your comm sats with RCS engines and minimize their tonnage. Or the third hand, have them with ports so a tug can launch and push them wherever you like after the initial dump.
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Jul 21, 2017 15:30
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