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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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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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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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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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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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Dante80 posted:The mothership (essentially, sat dispenser) model works like this. You make a ship that carries your satellites. Then you launch the mothership to an orbit around the celestial body you need. This interim, eccentric orbit has the desired final satellite constellation altitude as its apoapsis, and a periapsis that depends on the number of satellites you want to put around the celestial object. 2 points: I wonder how hard making this mothership would be, since I'm making the final stage a lot heavier, carrying all my satellites and all. Yeah maybe I could make them a bit smaller but still, total weight will be more, and this will make all the lower stages increasingly heavier. So I dunno. And it's slower than separate ships, because the mothership needs to make a complete orbit for each deployment. If they're all separate it only takes 1.8 orbits of the first satellite. And it gets worse with more: with 20 you would need 20 orbits while I would only need 1.95.
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Jul 21, 2017 21:42
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Not really. He just said it would be faster which I refuted. Actually now that I think about it, you could just slow down to the speed my final satellite would have for its first orbit and release it, then slow down and release the next, and so on. Same difference, but with a mothership. uXs fucked around with this message at 22:14 on Jul 21, 2017 |
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Jul 21, 2017 22:11
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Sure, and it's nice to see some other ideas.
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Jul 21, 2017 22:42
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It's beautiful...
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Jul 22, 2017 19:15
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Man I loving hate it when docking just. won't. work. Spent like an hour stroking one docking port with another. They do attract each other but then just as quickly bump and repel. JUST CONNECT YOU FUCKERS, GODDAMMIT. And no, I'm not doing anything wrong. They're lined up perfectly in all directions and also rotated correctly. edit: it's probably a bug. I think I had it before and reloading fixed it. I'll try it later. uXs fucked around with this message at 02:27 on Jul 23, 2017 |
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Jul 23, 2017 02:23
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Khisanth Magus posted:I think it's time to admit I can't do this game. Just wasted an hour setting up and doing my first low orbit flyby of the mun only to find out I hosed up my rocket design and it can't make it back down to kerbin. forgot the separation for my science section, which is in the way of the heat shield, and my monopropellant tanks are attached to that section, so I always explode on reentry. Screw it, done with this for now I think. And I always forget to save before takeoff so I'd have to just strand another rocket in space. Having a rocket stranded in space is the perfect excuse for a rescue mission. Don't forget it's basically rocket science, it's normal that you screw up in the beginning. Hell, even Nasa does poo poo like this: http://mentalfloss.com/article/502943/day-1962-nasa-launched-and-destroyed-mariner-1
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Jul 23, 2017 02:27
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You can let MechJeb auto-extend solar panels. Pretty sure this also works on ships that are completely out of power and out of control. Pull up the settings, toggle the option to auto-deploy solar panels, and bam! Fixed. Yeah, it's cheating. Sue me.
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Jul 23, 2017 03:45
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OwlFancier posted:I haven't used mechjeb in a very long time, couldn't be bothered to reinstall it and just stopped using it. I just use CKAN to do it all for me, and I also use 'Mechjeb and Engineer for all!' so I can have MJ en KER everywhere without having to actually them to every single ship. Speaking about docking, I like the 'Docking Port Alignment Indicator'. Easy docking without having to bother so much with the awkward camera controls. There's just some mods I can't do without, mostly Quality of Life stuff: MechJeb Kerbal Engineer Redux AutomatedScienceSampler Docking Port Alignment Indicator Kerbal Alarm Clock Procedural Fairings SafeChute Well I can do without them, I just don't want to. Other mods I have are just more parts and poo poo. SpaceY, Station Science Continued, USI, that sort of thing. Not that I have actually used USI yet, but one day!
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Jul 23, 2017 14:48
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Bhodi posted:You used to be able to nest docking port Senior / Standard / Junior to make a universal one but I launched a station and found I couldn't dock in the standard or senior ports. I thought you make the lips even but maybe I messed it up or it doesn't work anymore. You can tell its not working because they don't really grab for each other hard like they're supposed to. It wasn't that, they were 2 ports of exactly the same type. Problem was - I think - that they were construction ports with the 'snap' toggled on, and those seem to refuse to connect if you're even a micro-degree of angle away from zero. Turned that off and bam, worked in like 2 seconds. Arrakis Station: done.
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Jul 24, 2017 10:46
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You can change their colours by right-clicking in the VAB, it's pretty sweet. And there are fueled nose cones! I'm also using Color Coded Canisters which makes it easier to identify tanks in the VAB menu by colour-coding their end-caps.
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Jul 24, 2017 14:19
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ABen posted:I haven't played in about a year, but really want to pick KSP back up and play on my new machine. I use CKAN and it seems to do the job just fine, everything seems to be up to date as far as I know. I don't know about any mod drama but I hardly go out of my way looking for that either. I think I had 2 mods asking me to check for updates but I said no. CKAN can do that for me.
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Jul 24, 2017 19:29
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Khisanth Magus posted:I finally landed on the Mun! I ended up using more fuel for it than expected because of a bad approach, so I had to revert anyways and am adding some auxiliary fuel tanks to my landing and return stage. Kerbal Engineer has a surface info window. It has a ton of useful information, including what biome you are going to land in AND the ground slope angle which is amazingly useful if your lander has a tendency to fall over.
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Jul 25, 2017 19:45
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Make a sweet transport ship rocket, fill it up with Kerbals eager to go explore Duna, launch it into a parking orbit. Forward time until the transfer window comes up. Make the maneuver node, start burning! When it's almost done, notice that at some point you reverted a launch and then launched with 2 Kerbals instead of 10. Thank Zombie Kerbal Jesus that Kerbals have fairly short turnaround times on manufacturing and launching extra rockets. Hey, bonus transport at my Duna station!
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Jul 26, 2017 00:35
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So this is what 15 million looks like. 
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Jul 26, 2017 15:18
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Duna.
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Jul 26, 2017 17:18
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Anybody know what could be the reason for this happening? It's probably a mod, but which one? It's just a rendering error, you can't fly into them or whatever. And they seem to disappear when all of my ships are on their final stages. So it's probably one of the fuel tank mods? Or maybe SpaceY?
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Jul 28, 2017 19:38
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Aw yeah, pretty nice landing spot & time! edit: poo poo, broke one of the solar panels because my Kerbal spazzed out somehow. Any legit idea on how I can fix those? Or am I screwed? uXs fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Jul 28, 2017 |
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Jul 28, 2017 21:55
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What if I just have 2 of the 6x1 variant. And what if I broke the other one too while docking. Just hypothetically, mind you.
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Jul 29, 2017 01:00
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Sage Grimm posted:That sounds like a RESCUE mission to me! Yeah, I was still able to dock so I'm safely in orbit around Ike, docked to a huge fuel tank with huge solar panels so I'm pretty safe there. I also have a large space station around Duna that has a craft specifically made for Duna-Ike transfers so it won't be that hard a rescue/recovery mission. Duodecimal posted:In the VAB, right-click on fuel tanks and engines and you should see an option for Shroud. Toggle that off and those weird interpart plates will go away. For some engines, this might visually display the internal tanks and make it look like the engine's not physically connected, but that's OK. Cool, thanks. Duodecimal posted:Screwed, unless you don't mind editing save files. Do a ctrl-F to find the all-caps word "BROKEN". Replace it with "EXTENDED" (I think. Scan around for a non-broken solar panel and see what the equivalent value is). Hmh. If I can't really repair them I don't think I'll bother. I'll just send a new craft with less breakable panels. Maybe just add some of the simple ones and retract the others while doing maneuvers. And then push my current one into a collision with Ike. I need to send some new ships over there anyway, my Duna lander needs some improvements and the Duna-Kerbin transports are almost uncontrollable for docking. Hremsfeld posted:Well, hypothetically you could turn all your batteries off, angle your craft exclusively with RCS, get back to Kerbin, and turn your batteries back on for EDL...but it's a good thing that's not what happened, isn't it? Maybe... but that seems risky. And fairly pointless since it would be impossible to land on Kerbin because it doesn't have any parachutes.
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Jul 29, 2017 10:21
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Hadlock posted:Wow, played v0.16 - v0.90 would have spent many fewer days tweaking VTOL and Space Shuttle with something like TCA, that really turns on easy mode when you accidentally throttle up too fast and your space station goes in to an uncorrectable spin Activate time warp, problem solved.
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Aug 17, 2017 12:13
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Luneshot posted:For what it's worth, Mechjeb's rendezvous and docking is incredibly inefficient and once you get the technique down its usually faster and cheaper(fuel-wise) to just do it yourself. The docking is terrible yeah, but the rendezvous is perfectly fine though.
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Sep 10, 2017 14:15
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Silver Alicorn posted:Inefficient, but I use it all the time building stations so I can get an exact alignment. Does it actually work? I find it just wastes all the monoprop and you run out way before you can actually dock.
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Sep 10, 2017 14:19
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CapnAndy posted:I would like that! -Wings go on the bottom of the rocket, if you put them on top you're just making it worse -Check if your engines can gimbal/have thrust vectoring: if they don't, they can't steer your rocket. you don't need all your engines to be steerable, but at least one at all times -Try turning gently, abrupt turns aren't efficient and can make you unstable
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Apr 14, 2018 10:25
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Thinking about things this way can also be helpful: Say you're on approach to a planet, and you will arrive at the north pole. However, you'd rather approach at the south pole. When should you burn to change your approach? Close to the target or far away? It's all about the degrees. If you're far, far away, you only have change your aim a tiny bit to have massive changes to where you approach. The closer you are, the larger a change you'll have to do. So if you're, for example, just escaping the orbit of your origin the effects of anything you do are so huge that it's basically impossible to do any finetuning because even just turning your ship will send you all over the place. At the start of your journey: anything that brings you within or even near your target sphere of influence is good. Somewhere midway: aim to get close to your target. Nearing the end (but still quite a way out): aim your ship like an arrow, aiming for the orbit you want: pro- or retrograde, high or low, north or south, ... Even closer: finetuning. As for plane alignment, the cheapest is as far out as possible. But the only place you actually can align planes is on the ascending or descending node, so you actually don't have a choice in this if you're going to another planet.
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Aug 7, 2018 11:11
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JeremoudCorbynejad posted:So i have a question. Whenever i go to the Mun and try to use as little fuel as possible, i end up orbiting around it the same direction as when i was orbiting Kerbin (anticlockwise from above). I.e i enter orbit of the Mun by going "behind" the Mun as it orbits Kerbin (i guess you could say that when i reach apogee, the Mun zips by and pulls me along) http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/vintagespace/2018/04/21/why-apollo-flew-in-a-figure-8/ It's basically because doing it that way gives you a free return if something goes wrong.
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Mar 13, 2019 12:25
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CapnAndy posted:God drat it, what is the point of rovers? They can't travel at any speed even close enough to make hitting multiple biomes feasible unless you precision-land your ship, like, right on a border, and they're equally useless for investigating anomalies because at a planetary scale they are just. Too. loving. Slow. and you can't even time accelerate while you're on 'em. I have tried and tried and I just have gotten nothing out of the effort of building and bringing 'em. Yeah, there's no point because there aren't any instruments that benefit from being on a moving platform, unless you're visiting multiple biomes. Fairly easy fix would be if science worked differently, so that for example you'd get, say, 10 science from an instrument when you just land, and up to 50 when you can drive around with it for a bit, or repeat the experiment after moving a few metres. Maybe double it if you can drive a hundred meters or whatever so you're encouraged making rovers that work well. Then in other biomes you'd start at 10 again for a stationary visit. (Or maybe get a bonus because you can now compare your results with the first biome.)
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Oct 29, 2019 16:22
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Cojawfee posted:I don't think it's anything like tapping two race cars together. Race cars have to deal with aerodynamic forces and bumps in the road. The space craft are going fast, but there's nothing to cause them to bump together. So if you are stopped relative to the other ship, you're not going to suddenly crash into it. When you get within a few hundred meters, slow down to 5m/s compared to the other craft, and then when you get within 50 meters, slow down to 1m/s. Take everything really slowly and you always have time to react. I think people have issues because they try to go too fast. I was watching Gravity last night (terrible movie) and it was hilarious how loving fast George Clooney was going all the time. I feel like there's 3 parts to docking. 1) Rendez-vous: make the orbits intersect so that you're both there at the same time. When you're there, cancel out your relative velocity. 2) Get closer: burn towards your target at a reasonable speed. You will miss it, but you will get closer. At the closest point, cancel out relative velocity. Repeat until you're almost on top of it. 3) Dock. I'm sure step 2 could be done a lot cheaper by actually using orbital mechanics but whatever, it works.
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May 8, 2020 23:49
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Does Kerbal Alarm Clock still work on the latest version? I don't see how to install it through CKAN.
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May 7, 2021 12:56
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Otacon posted:Turn on CKAN compatibility for all KSP versions down to 1.9 and it should show up Oh. I just tried filtering on 'all' and couldn't find a way to install through that. I installed it manually but thanks!
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May 7, 2021 18:17
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