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

[FlowerChild]

Oh, looking in my save files, looks like I created a 2nd version of that probe after the first, with a few refinements:

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I notice I shaved off a ring of batteries there, and that the stack decoupler for the nose cone up top is pointed in the opposite direction, with me having the vague recollection of being pissed off that I carried it all the way to Mun for no good reason on the first go ;)

It was awhile ago, but I think the first one made it to a Munar orbit, but I ran out of fuel while adjusting the orbit to be polar, so decided to shave off some weight for the 2nd attempt. I think I picked up most of the equatorial biomes on the first go, thus didn't feel I needed as many batteries on the 2nd.

Hehe...yeah, I think that's right. Looking at what I currently have in orbit around the Mun, the one highlighted is the probe from the first screenshot, the one on a polar orbit is the 2nd from the screenshot above:

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You can see how I ran out of fuel while inclining my orbit on the first :)

[Stormweaver]

One useful thing I'll mention; Once you're starting to get things into orbit, after a mission load up your rocket in the vech construction building, put the orbit stages into a sub-assembly, and stick a rough approximation of how much it was able to lift up there. As you tech up, various bits get lighter (like probe cores, batteries) while other heavy things become important (like heat shields) And having a couple of designs that you know can get x mass into orbit saves a lot of rage when you seem to *just* keep missing it for whatever reason.

[TheGatesofLogic]

I still don't think much of planes in KSP, and am balancing the science value of plane missions to simply be a little bonus rather than a dependency, but I will admit missions like this are a pleasant bit of gameplay diversity within the rest of the tech progression.

Thank you for this. I have little to no interest in planes in KSP.

Icy... Why do you insist on building up my respect for you for weeks before crushing it with a single sentence? seriously though, this is like the fourth time!

[FlowerChild]

Arg! Wait a second...rather off topic, but is Scott Manley a goon?

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There goes my ability to watch any of his videos :)

EDIT: Sigh...yes, apparently he is:

It was posted on Somethingawful.com, a website that I had joined primarily because I wanted to watch a Mass Effect LP.

Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProg ... ts/19htb7/

[jorgebonafe]

*snip* Your experience with that rocket thus may vary in the extreme.

Yeah, I noticed... Maybe my last stage is a bit heavy... I put a lot of batteries to maximize the amount of experiments I can make... I don't know, only I tried your rocket and got into Kerbin orbit, but failed at getting to the Mun... I ended up using my design in the end :P At least it gets me plenty extra fuel for any mistakes I make...

5 Mun biomes left. Yey! (finding them is kind of a bitch though...)

[PatriotBob]

Arg! Wait a second...rather off topic, but is Scott Manley a goon?

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There goes my ability to watch any of his videos :)

EDIT: Sigh...yes, apparently he is:

It was posted on Somethingawful.com, a website that I had joined primarily because I wanted to watch a Mass Effect LP.

Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProg ... ts/19htb7/

Yeah I believe that goes back to his time playing EVE or something...
I don't know enough about "goon"s to know why that matters... Do we not like these people? The only thing I've heard about them is their exploits on EVE which sounded quite hilarious...

[FlowerChild]

Yeah, I noticed... Maybe my last stage is a bit heavy... I put a lot of batteries to maximize the amount of experiments I can make... I don't know, only I tried your rocket and got into Kerbin orbit, but failed at getting to the Mun... I ended up using my design in the end :P At least it gets me plenty extra fuel for any mistakes I make...

Well, it's one of the things that makes launches interesting in that pilot skill is definitely a big factor. If it was all down to rocket design, it would make launches incredibly dull after awhile :)

Unfortunately though, I think a lot of players just gravitate towards making more and more ridiculously big rockets to overcome that instead of really looking at what they're doing and considering how they're flying might be the problem.

5 Mun biomes left. Yey! (finding them is kind of a bitch though...)

Remember that you really don't need all of them, as yes, finding them all can be a bitch. I've tried to balance it so that just hitting most of them is enough.

[jorgebonafe]

Is there a particular reason to leave your stuff orbiting forever? When I'm done with my experiments and I know I can't land, I just crash them....

Also, when you go to the tracking station and click on "terminate", does it disappear or does it just vanishes from the tracker and stays there orbiting until you crash on it on a future take off?

[kaspermwh]

So what you mean to say is that i have to be on the lowest point going in orbit and then thrust down? Or do i have to make a curve so i launch from one side of the plabet, and land on the other?

Like this:

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Left is bad, right is good. If you have enough fuel by the time you get below the atmosphere to decelerate a bit, great. I don't think that is really necessary though.

Thanks for the drawing man, i'll go try that right now. :)

[jorgebonafe]

Unfortunately though, I think a lot of players just gravitate towards making more and more ridiculously big rockets to overcome that instead of really looking at what they're doing and considering how they're flying might be the problem.

Well, go easy on me, I started from scratch just a couple of weeks ago :) I'm guessing it takes a while to get the hang of piloting rockets well, not to mention sorting through all those building parts in your head. I'm still a bit overwhelmed... Its funny, every time I get enough science to buy new tech at first I'm singing and jumping from happiness, and a moment later I'm like "now wft is all this stuff? O.O"

[kaspermwh]

What i'm working with right now.

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[FlowerChild]

Is there a particular reason to leave your stuff orbiting forever? When I'm done with my experiments and I know I can't land, I just crash them....

I dunno man. That's kinda like asking if there's a reason to leave your structures in place in MC after completing them rather than just demolishing them to make room or starting a new world :)

Having remnants of past missions floating around is cool. The very rare occasion when they come within visual range again on another missions is even cooler. Having derelicts floating around which you can potentially dock with in an emergency to scavenge resources is hela cool.

With time it makes your game "world" feel more and more alive. The constant restarts I've been doing while working on balancing BTSM tend to bother me a great deal because I've lost a lot of that in the process.

Also, when you go to the tracking station and click on "terminate", does it disappear or does it just vanishes from the tracker and stays there orbiting until you crash on it on a future take off?

It wipes it out completely.

[FlowerChild]

Well, go easy on me, I started from scratch just a couple of weeks ago :) I'm guessing it takes a while to get the hang of piloting rockets well, not to mention sorting through all those building parts in your head. I'm still a bit overwhelmed... Its funny, every time I get enough science to buy new tech at first I'm singing and jumping from happiness, and a moment later I'm like "now wft is all this stuff? O.O"

Hehe...I hear that, and BTSM is actually way less overwhelming in that regard than vanilla is :)

And yeah, it does take quite awhile to get the hang of flying efficiently (heck, I'm still continually tweaking how I launch with pretty much each mission), and the amount of info coming at you when you start playing is pretty heavy. I guess I had a bit of a head start there too given my physics background and that I've been very interested in space exploration and astronomy since I was a kid.

So yeah, no shame in taking awhile to digest all of it, it's just worth keeping it in mind that pilot skill is definitely a factor, and if you're running into trouble with a launch, it might be time to start researching a little about appropriate velocities based on altitude, how to perform a decent gravity turn, etc., rather than just building bigger :)

[jorgebonafe]

So yeah, no shame in taking awhile to digest all of it, it's just worth keeping it in mind that pilot skill is definitely a factor, and if you're running into trouble with a launch, it might be time to start researching a little about appropriate velocities based on altitude, how to perform a decent gravity turn, etc., rather than just building bigger :)

Actually since a couple of days ago I wrote a table on a piece of paper with terminal velocity values... I never launch without them anymore :P Although I didn't test to see how much of a difference that actually makes...

[FlowerChild]

What i'm working with right now.

I personally wouldn't attempt to do goo and manned in one launch. You're making things more difficult than they really need to be.

Goo canisters are heavy. Manned capsules are even heavier. Increased weight = increased momentum, meaning you take longer to slow down in the atmosphere, meaning you accumulate more heat.

And for Pete's sake: why 4 goo canisters? Wouldn't it make more sense to collect the atmospheric results in one mission (say with the pressurized manned cockpit at the tech level before) and the orbital ones in another to further reduce weight?

Weight is bad, mkay? :)

[PatriotBob]

Is there a particular reason to leave your stuff orbiting forever? When I'm done with my experiments and I know I can't land, I just crash them....

It definitely gives the whole feeling of Kessler Syndrome being an actual thing when you're at the tracking station. I've only had one collision in space with debris so far and that was because early on when I would regularly stage parts in a near perfect 100km orbit. So after a long while I had a bunch of junk up there.

Unfortunately there's not much gameplay reasons to not just fly-by and crater everything that's unmanned. They've talked about giving you reasons to build satellite networks, space stations and resource gathering and processing of Kerbin. But until they add into the stock game, you either are going to be doing it just because you want to or using mods like Remote Tech 2 and Kethane to give you reasons to permanently colonize space.

[Edit to prevent double posting]

What i'm working with right now.

Goo canisters are heavy. Manned capsules are even heavier. Increased weight = increased momentum, meaning you take longer to slow down in the atmosphere, meaning you accumulate more heat.

I have to admit, I beat my head against my first mun landing having all the science and goo on it for the surface... The lander was so monstrous, and was built for reentry... it... just don't. Make two trips.

[FlowerChild]

Unfortunately there's not much gameplay reasons to not just fly-by and crater everything that's unmanned. They've talked about giving you reasons to build satellite networks, space stations and resource gathering and processing of Kerbin. But until they add into the stock game, you either are going to be doing it just because you want to or using mods like Remote Tech 2 and Kethane to give you reasons to permanently colonize space.

I'm not doing it yet in BTSM, but you may remember me mentioning in the past that in vanilla I build pretty much every craft with small docking ports so I can potentially use any fuel left in them in an emergency.

Ok, it's not space station cool and useful, and I do think I mostly leave stuff orbiting for flavor, but I do think it's pretty cool and useful in its own right.

[kaspermwh]

What i'm working with right now.

I personally wouldn't attempt to do goo and manned in one launch. You're making things more difficult than they really need to be.

Goo canisters are heavy. Manned capsules are even heavier. Increased weight = increased momentum, meaning you take longer to slow down in the atmosphere, meaning you accumulate more heat.

And for Pete's sake: why 4 goo canisters? Wouldn't it make more sense to collect the atmospheric results in one mission (say with the pressurized manned cockpit at the tech level before) and the orbital ones in another to further reduce weight?

Weight is bad, mkay? :)

Hehe, if you say so :)

[FlowerChild]

Actually, I guess it is worth emphasizing that if you're ever running into difficulty, trying not to do absolutely everything in a single mission can make things much easier.

For example, I broke up my Minmus probing this last game into separate orbiter (thermometer, barometer, gravioli), landing missions (seismic scan, thermometer, barometer), and orbit then return missions (just 2 goo canisters). I still have one out of fuel goo mission floating in orbit around Kerbin (you can see it in the list of active missions I have going in the screen above), and it took me a few tweaks and a 2nd launch to accomplish it, but the other 2 succeeded on the first shot.

Again, payload weight is basically your primary consideration in rocket design. Breaking things up into multiple missions may make things way easier and less time consuming, when you may intuitively think the opposite.

[FlowerChild]

Correction: I decided to check to make sure, and apparently on this last run I decided to do both Minmus orbit and landing in one go for a change (I normally do them separately):

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Goo return was indeed a separate mission, and I believe I used it as one of my initial tests of my Saturn style launch platform:

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It's also worth noting that's around the time I decided the mod really needed a 2.5m battery part, as you see in many of my other screenshots ;)

[Stormweaver]

Well, I managed my first 'Proper' Mun landing just now. (The first actual one being the landing of a Mk-1 command pod with lots of fuel for re-entry).

I wasn't having a lot of luck with fitting both the Mk1-2 command pod and the landing bit one the same rocket so...I sent them separately. And it worked out quite well tbh; being able to shift the fuel back and forth allowed me to keep enough fuel back that my re-entry may as well have been from a sub-orbital probe for all it's speed.

Docking is fun.

[FlowerChild]

Well, I managed my first 'Proper' Mun landing just now. (The first actual one being the landing of a Mk-1 command pod with lots of fuel for re-entry).

Wait...weren't the energy requirements on doing the Mk-1 like rather insanely prohibitive? :)

Docking is fun.

Hehe...indeed :)

[PatriotBob]

Wait...weren't the energy requirements on doing the Mk-1 like rather insanely prohibitive? :)

Like that stops the people of this community... :P

[FlowerChild]

Like that stops the people of this community... :P

Well sure, I can certainly see doing it as a challenge, but if it's actually easier with the Mk1 pod, then I've failed to balance things correctly.

[Stormweaver]

Wait...weren't the energy requirements on doing the Mk-1 like rather insanely prohibitive? :)

If you're going for fuel efficiency, yes. I seem to remember I was going fast enough to the Mun that if I overshot it was escape velocity >.< Not easy, just the product of learning how to dock without learning how to quicksave.