I took the time to set up .18.4 in hopes that the new unity engine version would help make this monstrosity run faster but it doesn't really do much. I think I would need that physics mod :(
Been messing with single stage to orbit (SSTO) space plane construction. It is pretty hard. I can't help but think take off would be easier with a bloody joystick too.
You buggers have had me up until nearly 2am again trying to get an SSTO space plane going (single stage to orbit). These things are tricky. On my little space planes (10-12t) less than 10% mass change can make the difference between winning and losing. I've had such a time of it. This design, too big and floppy. Also, didn't make it to orbit. This design? Not enough rocket fuel. And then itterate on that a half dozen times until we get to the Bumbebee IV, the perfect balance between engine, lift, weight, rocket fuel load, etc etc. Comes in at 11.5t. Reaches 1,600m/s at about 28,000m before we turn on the motors. Climbs steadily at 60 degrees from just after take off. Only different from other, similar craft is two of those small poodle engines, a little less weight in RCS thrusters, two "ball" RCS tanks fewer and no struts. That's a half ton+ of savings right there. Whadoyaknow? Docks up nicely too! Tip: placing landing gear makes a WORLD of difference to planes, I find. You want to be reasonably close with the back ones to the line where your centre of gravity is or you won't be able to lever the nose up. If your wings are in any way angled, (eg, up, which they should be. A slight V when seen from the nose helps stability) then landing gear glued to angled things (as in, not parallel with the ground) will cause your craft to be very hard to drive around on the ground. Keep the landing gear stuck to fuel tanks and plane bodies and other things parallel to the ground. Also, angle your wings slightly up (as in their leading edge is higher than their trailing edge). The aerodynamics model in KSP is no more complex than this for generating lift. Phew. SSTO. What a challenge!
Which physics mod is this? I'm looking for some increased performance. It's not unplayable, but gets choppy at points.
My answer to bad choppiness is to take the previously listed time acceleration mod and using it set the physics to 1/2. i then use the normal acceleration to speed the the game to 2x. End result? Smoooooth game! ...but quicksave often, I fear it is a touch unstable.
Couldn't resist some more shots of this little plane. SO PROUD. Can I post it in the "cute kids" thread? Here's the craft file if anyone wants to try it. Tips: 1) At the start 1 turns on your jet, 2 turns on the rockets. Leave those off for now. 2) 3 turns off one set of air intakes. Do it. 3) Throttle to full power, at the end of the runway tap on the "s" key like you're a Diablo clicker and you should lift off. 4) After you clear the coast you should be able to MechJeb your way using "Surf" at 60 degrees to 15,000m. 5) Turn back on all air vents by pressing 3. 6) Keep going up to about 22,000m 7) Change surf to 20 degrees and accelerate to 1,600ish m/s. Don't let your altitude get much over 25,000m. 8) At about peek speed point back up to 60 degrees and engage rockets, drive to orbit!
Working on a related project now. Functionally, relatively easy to do, but doing it with style and awesome? Now THAT is a challenge. I felt my Solar Explorer probe was a good example of a stylish sort of project - this will be more of the same. Hopefully with less bloody headaches than my Duna Airship project. Good times, good times.
Calistas, I'm unable to get the ship to show up. I added it to the Ships folder in saved games but nothing! edit: nvmnd
I did a dirty fix. I just put the file in one of the folders already created by one of the parts/ships addons .
I am having some difficulties achieving orbit, though. I'll keep trying but some more tips wouldn't hurt.
So you are on jet only to about 22,00m right? Accelerate to 1,600m/s, at least, and then nose up to climb as high as the jet will let you until flame out. Immediately engage rockets, angle up to at least 60 degrees and push your AP out to, say, 100k. Throttle down to 0 and warp out to 100k, go prograde, and circularize your orbit. Shouldn't be too hard?
Well despite the fact that I've been playing Kerbal for months now, tonight was the first time that I ever went to Duna, landed people on Duna, returned them to orbit, and returned to Kerbin safely. I've been to Duna any number of times but I never really bothered with a proper lander before. It was fun!
All four pieces are in orbit, but all four pieces are broken in that me 1:4 node adaptor doesn't work with our docking ports on it! I want to connect four ports to four ports for increased strength and stability but it seems when I decouple pieces (such as the fuel tanks above) that three of the four docking ports fall off for no good reason. When playing with action groups I noticed that one docking port is sort of indicating all of the ship above it when it is highlighted, the other three only themselves. Fortunately, I have a fix: build each module with the large 3m docking port which is part of a pack on KSP. It does mean a bunch of editing again, but I will use HyperEdit to move the pieces into orbit as I have proven to my own satisfaction that I am can get these things up there - I just don't want to actually sit through the launch process. We do make weird rules for ourselves as gamers, don't we? Then I just have to Lego all these four pieces together and hope the whole bloody thing works. No guarantees! Haha!
Yeah loved everything except for the very obvious technical inaccuracy of trying to fit two kerbs into a one man capsule. The technical adviser on the film should be launched toward Kerbol.
Turns out you can't get four docking ports to connect in the VAB. The solution is to use either a big docking port, use HyperEdit to move the modules to orbit, or, on the launch pad, slightly suspend the module above the launcher and then let them click together naturally. I am going to HyperEdit.
Oh, SpoofyChop and Calistas, I dunno if y'all heard my shout out to you guys on my most recent podcast, but if I could technically find a way to get us all three on a skype/google hangout thing and have y'all yell at my while I try to play this game, would y'all be up for it?
Nope, but I shall do so! Happy to yell at you across any medium, we do have people in here with a nice mumble server, and it has great voice quality, but for three of us I imagine Skype would also be good. We'd probably have to watch you stream, AND you would have o capture the game and the Skype and game sound (fraps would do that), so quite a bit of work for your PC, but I think doable.
Hmmm, I'll look and see what the best solution for that is. I can stream video to something like Twitch.tv and then maybe pipe in the audio through Skype. I'll figure it out.
Yeah, if we watch on twitch and talk to you on Skype, fraps will capture all sources of sound (Skype and the game an your mic) I am sure.
Well thanks for the shoutout...I'm listening to the podcast now though I haven't heard it yet. As for a skype or hangout, that sounds pretty fun. Have your people call my people and we'll do lunch.
I loved the reminiscence about Privateer...one of my top ten games. And I wasn't yelling at you so much as yelling with you :D
I present to you the construction of the KSS @Lum-inator! Here's the front section and the accommodation section stuck together. Fuel section added, now adding the engine block And here she is in all her glory (sans Bumblee fighters) And another. You can see I've discarded the strength-enhancing pylons from the cargo bay. (I confess I used the Rendezvous mode of HyperEdit to get all the pieces within a couple of hundred meters of each other - but I then went on to dock them myself. Thank god for -PAR and +PAR in MechJeb, without which this would have been impossible. I sort of feel that once you've spent 30 minutes lining up a rendezvous, and done it a few times, you have earned the right to skip this time-consuming process (or I'd be here all week). I also need to rebuild this on the ground and put it in orbit because, surprise surprise, 7 Nuclear engines aren't enough to push 350t around at anything like a reasonable speed. I'll switch them out for something more pushy. And lighter, so makes no difference to the achievement. Also, the "Home" modules in my accommodation block are flexing a lot so I am going to have to add more struts there. Also also I couldn't always get all four docking ports to line up and decoupling and re-coupling each section multiple times (what it would take) is going to get exceptionally tedious - so rebuild whole on the surface and re-orbit using HyperEdit is my plan. I'll also be able to reduce the part count by removing some redundant MechJebs and whatnot). Next step - bring up a couple of new Bumblebees (with docking strut nodes ready to go) and send this thing to the station, and then the stars other planets!
I really love fairings. I love the goofiness of KSP but there's also something nice about having a rocket that looks pretty realistic. One of the fairings I've been wishing for was a flush 1.25 m fairing (in contrast to the 1.25 "expanded" fairing" that comes with KW Rocketry.) So I took the KW 2m fairing and rescaled it (which turned out to be fairly easy) The upside is now I have the fairing that I wanted, though the downside is that I don't understand a lot of the numbers in the config file so the attachment point on the bottom of the fairing base is a little off. I kind of wish they just used XML for their config files. I think they would be a little more self documenting.
SpoofyChop, have you checked out the Fairing Factory website? http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/28405-Fairing-Factory-1-2-New-FairingLink-plugin It will do the hard work for you in creating fairings.
The KSS Luminator goes to Eve! First up, we need to get two Bumblebee IVs up to the Luminator. Docking. Almost there! In comes ship number 2 Pilots transfer to the habitation section. Habitation biomes deployed, Bumblebee's strutted, solar panels deployed - we're ready to go! A station flyby... At 352t and got knows how many parts this thing is way too laggy to attempt a dock :( Orbiting Eve Pilot transferring to a Bumblebee Undocked! Entering the atmosphere... "Er, guys, you know the atmosphere has no oxygen, right? We can't fire the jet engines and take off!" "Guys...?" Well, it was fun to put this thing together, and it carries about 4,000 delta-v, so it can travel, but the damn thing needs to be run at 1/2 physics (then x2 on the normal alt+> speed up) otherwise it lags way too bad. Even then a 5 minute burn was at least 30 minutes of Calistas real world time so I won't be doing any more flying of this beast.
I really loved the "clunky" old human fleet designs in B5. Nice change from sleek and sexy Star Trek stuff. Anyway, check this out! Fully functioning robotic arms for stations! Here's the forum thread. Pretty bloody awesome.. but i'm not going to be messing with them as I'm taking a wee break from KSP (and I'm between games in general). I'll almost certainly kick more stuff around in v.19 and so on. Hope you've had fun reading my stuff!
Where did you see content? I'm looking and I only find Brian Rubin podcasts... and herp-a-derp, here it is! "UP EQUALS ORBIT!" ...haha. Newb ;)
Calistas, you are doing some seriously awesome stuff! I've finally fired KSP up again for a few times. Managed to get some sattelites into Mun orbit (after my first attempt overshot the moon and ended up in orbit around the sun). Also I recreated Calistas' Bumblebee craft as well as I could using only stock parts and it works pretty well. Sometimes during flight it can get unstable as hell but that's part of the fun.
