Better Than Starting Manned (Flower's WIP KSP mod )

[FlowerChild]

That's for the confirm, I cleaned the GameData prior. Didn't seem right to play it in a manner you didn't intend. Maybe I'll reinstall completely just to check. I generally have to spend 50 monopropellant to keep it righted between 50km and 20km. I'll dig some more.

Hmmmm...I just noticed that my reaction wheels seem to be going full tilt (from the energy expenditure) with SAS engaged during reentry, so you may be on to something here. I'll take a look at the center of mass of the pod to see if it needs to be adjusted.

[Psion]

So, what is the use of an octagonal strut anyways? I unlocked it, yet i have no clue how to put it to use.

[FlowerChild]

So, what is the use of an octagonal strut anyways? I unlocked it, yet i have no clue how to put it to use.

If you take a look at the screenshot I posted earlier in the thread with a probe designed for reentry, it'll give you some clues as to how it can be used. I'm using a cubic strut there, but same idea (I've since moved the cubic strut later in the tech tree due to exploits involving its use).

Here, I'll post it again for reference in case anyone else finds it handy:

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The idea there is that I'm keeping all the heavy parts, like the goo canisters and my probe core, down at the bottom of the reentry stage (the heat shield is hard to see in that pic, but it's right below the SAS). Meanwhile, I need a narrow portion that will be within the wake of the heat shield to attach the RCS thrusters to so that they don't burn off during reentry. If I were to attach them to the RCS tank for example, they wouldn't be shielded. I also want that part to be lightweight so that it doesn't shift the center of gravity too far upwards. While heavy initially, I've put the RCS tank higher up because I'll be burning off fuel during the rest of the flight, making it lighter.

Designing reentry stages is rather tricky, and the octagonal strut comes in very handy there for providing lightweight superstructure to attach things to.

[FlowerChild]

Sorry guys, can't get a fix out for the Mk1 command pod tonight. Deadly Reentry is behaving in a very funky manner with this thing that has had me spending hours tweaking to no avail, and then awhile longer digging in the code for DR itself to try and figure out why it's behaving the way it is.

I'm absolutely pooped at the moment as a result, so will give myself the night to sleep on the problem.

[ExpHP]

Alright, I'm starting to catch up a little, and I really gotta say, I had a blast trying to gather science from the Gravioli detector without any RCS. Nothing better than launching giant metal rocks into the air and seeing where they land.

Likewise, I felt really clever when I figured out how to make my unpressurized shuttle (with no throttle control) keep within a safe altitude, without overpowering the parachutes when it's time to land... though now that I look back, everyone else probably figured it out much more quickly. :P

[E.B. Farnham]

So today's adventures in space started with a redesign of my one man orbiter. The original was a bit inefficient and I felt it was time this venerable launch platform be retired. The new one is much shinier.

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This allowed Jeb to report on all the remaining Kerbin Biomes. This unlocked the big orange tank and the "Keel Haul" so Mun probing could begin.

The Mun Prober 5000 was constructed and launched on its first test flight so I could get a handle on how much power and fuel would be needed to place a probe in low Munar Orbit. Surpassing all expectations she made it all the way to the Mun and established a low orbit. Two orbits later much science was gained and as her power began to wane she went from orbital probe to impactor. Leaving a beautiful crater.

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Now that I have a feel for the requirements to get there I think it's time to put some steely probe goodness on the surface at a slightly more survivable velocity.

[Stormweaver]

Well, after a while I got a little bored of throwing rocks at the mun, and noticed that I'd acquired a new sciencey part at some point. The end result was my first successful jet aircraft, a bunch of nice science and a dead kerbal because I still don't have anywhere to put a parachute on the thing and can't land aircraft.

Very, very fun. Now to figure out how to get my Jet (and more importantly, it's nosecone) up to the north pole for the biomes up there.

[Mason11987]

Just did my first real re-entry, I've NEVER had to care about that before, Did retro burn, then decouple into a heat shield long enough to break enough for my parachute.

Full landing with BOTH goo canisters (low and hi orbit). SO satisfying!

Just realized, I have no idea how to handle space planes, are the air intakes useful at the stage you can get them?

[kaspermwh]

Im at stuck at tech 3, i have the Survivability and Stability tech on my way to Liquid Fuel, but i'm missing 4 science points.

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Did readings of temp and pressure at: ground, 18km+, 70km+ and 250km+ and recovered an unmanned vessel at 70km+

What am i missing? :)

[PatriotBob]

Not sure this is what you meant, but there is a separation between ground and flying at < 18k.

[kaspermwh]

I've done readings all the way up to 250km, no science gained since the first time.

[FlowerChild]

Phew! Found it. Turns out it wasn't my values that were messed up due to a weight adjustment, it's that my values weren't being registered for the mk1 pod at all.

Very weird. I finally wound up checking the debug log when every change I was making to try and adjust this was failing to have any discernible effect, and realized that my part changes to the mk1 were failing to be processed. Oddly, I wound up having to retype the changes verbatim to get them to register, despite seeing no difference whatsoever with the original text examining it over and over again. I'm usually very anal about understanding stuff like that when it happens before moving on, but in this very very rare case, I just can't figure out what was doing it.

Anyways, works great now. I'll put out a release very shortly to correct this issue and cover a couple of other things.

Hmmmm...I just noticed that my reaction wheels seem to be going full tilt (from the energy expenditure) with SAS engaged during reentry, so you may be on to something here. I'll take a look at the center of mass of the pod to see if it needs to be adjusted.

Going back to this point: I just dead-sticked (no input on the controls, no SAS) reentered with the mk1 pod with a parachute on top, and it worked fine, so it's definitely not top heavy. My reaction wheels freaking out above was probably just due to general SAS spazzery. Also, if you take a look at the center of mass indicator on it in the VAB, you'll see it's definitely towards the bottom.

I suspect something else might have been going on with your attempt man. You know it's the wide-end (where the heat shield is) that you want to face into direction of travel right?

[FlowerChild]

What am i missing? :)

No science is gained on the ground, and you're missing low altitude flight in your list (flying, but less than 18K).

[kaspermwh]

What am i missing? :)

No science is gained on the ground, and you're missing low altitude flight in your list (flying, but less than 18K).

Hmm, tried the same ship both above and below 18 km, and recovered it safely. Got this screen both times.

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The other one said upper atmosphere

[Stormweaver]

Have you tried a manned flight and gotten a crew report?

I haven't run into any problems with science availability yet (There's a decent bit of breathing room after liquid fuel, which is nice) But I have to admit, T6 is giving me a lot of trouble in terms of what to buy once I've gotten a little more biome science out of the Mun. Too many good options >.>

[kaspermwh]

I tried getting off the ground, reaching about 10km and landed safely if that's what you mean about a crew report?

[Stormweaver]

I tried getting off the ground, reaching about 10km and landed safely if that's what you mean about a crew report?

No, I mean getting in the air, right clicking on the cockpit and selecting 'crew report'.

[kaspermwh]

I tried getting off the ground, reaching about 10km and landed safely if that's what you mean about a crew report?

No, I mean getting in the air, right clicking on the cockpit and selecting 'crew report'.

I knew i was missing something! Thank you :)

[Stormweaver]

You're welcome :)

[E.B. Farnham]

Another milestone reached. Mecha Kerbals steely octo claw has touched Munar soil. Sadly his battery life only allowed me a 50% transmission on the seismic data. That costs a lot of juice. So I will have to send an upgraded Mun Prober 9000.

Still it was no easy feat to get a probe touched down there. I ended up with just about enough fuel to do the job. A great rush of satisfaction resulted once I landed and didn't fall over.

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I think once that's done a manned mission to orbit the Mun and grab some juicy crew reports may be in order. Though that shall have to wait till tomorrow.

I'm really enjoying this play through. Considering in vanilla KSP I had gotten to the stage of building outlandishly large ships in orbit and SSTO's, mostly gaining my enjoyment from the technical aspects of perfecting the designs. It's great to be actually enjoying the flying again as well as the building. It really is the constraints that make the game.

Cheers again chief for the mod goodness.

[FlowerChild]

All right, here it is! Version 0.09999:

Download Link

This one is mostly to just correct the problem with the Mk1 pod's heatshield I've been talking about, but there's a few other small bits too:

-Corrected a problem where the Mk1 command pod's heat shield was way too difficult to survive reentry with. It should be more forgiving now.

-Increased the amount of electric charge contained on the Mk1 Command Pod, so that it has ample power to survive reentry without any additional batteries attached to it.

-Moved the non-control-surface fins that were in tech level 2 much further up in the tech tree as they were causing confusion for new players given they don't actually stabilize your craft as one would expect (unless you put an angle on them to create spin, which isn't something that would generally occur to a new player). The difference between fins you can control and ones you can't just wasn't distinct enough to introduce them that early in the tree.

-Made a few other minor changes to the later tech tree, that I can't rightly recall at present :)

Enjoy :)

[E.B. Farnham]

Ahah nice. Especially the Mk1 battery change, a bat burn off is what took Jeb from me and spread him in vapour form over Kerbins sky.

Should help in making sure Bill doesn't share his fate when I send him round the mun and back.

[FlowerChild]

Ahah nice. Especially the Mk1 battery change, a bat burn off is what took Jeb from me and spread him in vapour form over Kerbins sky.

Should help in making sure Bill doesn't share his fate when I send him round the mun and back.

Thanks! Yeah, I figured having enough charge to sustain life support and reaction wheels on the way down was a good idea.

I'd really recommend unlocking the Mk1-2 command pod before attempting a Munar orbit though, both because the life support requirements are *much* lower (despite carrying three crew), and because without the associated heat shield, surviving reentry will be problematic. I've basically tried to set it up so the Mk1 is the rough equivalent of a Gemini capsule, designed for LKO, while the Mk1-2 is more of an Apollo capsule, designed for trips to the Mun.

[E.B. Farnham]

Hmm yup I had forgotten that I'd have significantly greater velocity dropping from the Mun into Kerbin atmosphere. I might try building a drone and attempting it with that first just to see if it can be done. If I use multiple aerobraking passes to slow down and keep some disposable ship parts below the pod as extra ablative shielding it might be doable.

Not sensible but it just might work. Though then it becomes a question of how much power would be needed to sustain the pod for long enough to do several aerobrakes. I guess it depends on how much speed I can bleed with each pass and how many passes were needed to slow down enough without melting whatever I use as ablative heatshielding. I'll probably use an engine as they likely have decent heat tolerance. I'm guessing hitting about 50 km up would be a good start.

I should wait for the Mk2 pod but now I have to know if it can be done with the Mk 1. I may be killing some poor Kerbal tomorrow then I guess, still it'll be for science, so that's not so bad.

[FlowerChild]

Be sure to let me know the results, as I've tried to balance it so the travel to the Mun and back with reentry isn't really viable until you have the larger heat shield :)

I suspect it's probably doable if you *really* work at it, but I don't want it to be easy enough that it's the path of least resistance. At tech level 5 I'd like players to be focused on getting a Kerbil into orbit, and starting to send probes to the Mun to take orbital readings, whereas tech level 6 is all about working your way up to Mun landings.

One other thing to keep in mind is that while you could conceivably launch manned missions with the Mk1 to the Mun, space suits are only unlocked with the Mk1-2 (which is another reason I put that space suit tech progression thing in there to act as a gateway), so your science return will be pretty crappy given you won't be able to collect EVA reports and surface samples.