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

[FlowerChild]

Got an issue. I put a probe into orbit around the Mun, but can't get a reading from my gravioli detectors. I try, then it says it can't be done right now, and the button to take the measurement goes away until I relog. I'm at 150 km, and have enough power, so I don't get what's wrong. Bug, or a silly mistake?

You're in high orbit and the gravioli detector only works in low. Low orbit around the Mun only starts below 20Km and extends all the way to the surface, as it's a much smaller body than Kerbin and has no atmosphere. I usually aim to orbit it around 10Km (except when I'm intending to land, in which case I usually orbit at 20Km so that I'm moving a bit slower relative to the surface and I have more time to prepare). Much lower and you'll risk hitting a mountain as you orbit.

[FlowerChild]

Yeah it definitely seemed power/weight was more of a concern before I started filling out tier 6 and doing my Mun landings. I'm coming back with a lot of juice still in the batteries now. I think my current design is coming back with about 8000 of it's 14000 battery power on an uneventful mission. Though I would consider myself to be at the stage where Mun landings are routine.

Oh, and returning to this point: yeah, I think I might even jack it back up to the previous values, as power management was much more interesting in the older releases.

I made a classic balance mistake there, which I always try to avoid in overcompensating for a problem in multiple areas at once instead of making a single change, see how it settles, then only changing additional things if necessary.

In this case, I added DR at the same time I adjusted the battery weight and experiment transmission power requirements, both of which served to address the same problem (the problem being people loading up on multiple instances of experiments instead of transmitting results). When DR was added, returning those experiments to Kerbin became much harder and may have been sufficient entirely on its own to fix the issue.

We'll see. Something definitely feels off there at present, and I'll run some tests to get it right.

[PatriotBob]

Yup, very true, and I certainly do take pride in it, however I'm on a ticking clock right now with regards to my finances and RTH, so every extra day I devote to this is making me more and more stressed out.

Well I don't think any one here would fault you for putting down this project for a while. It's already similar to MC in that your modding a game still in a state of flux.
And in the end if you need to make a decision in that regard because of your finances, pretty sure everyone here will support that. Your work has been amazing, so where ever your directing you attention is a win for us anyways. :)

[FlowerChild]

Well I don't think any one here would fault you for putting down this project for a while. It's already similar to MC in that your modding a game still in a state of flux.

Well, as usual, I'm not particularly concerned with what other people think of it, it's what I think of it that matters to me :)

For my own sanity, gotta get this "done" man. I can't invest this much work into something and just abandon it in the final stretch before it's in a state where I feel comfortable releasing it to the public at large. That would do a number on my own self confidence, which would have far more lasting consequences on my future development efforts than what it's currently doing to my bank account ;)

I'm a very goal oriented and focused person to the point of being obsessive in my single-mindedness. That's been of great benefit to me in my chosen field (I'd even go so far as to say it's been my greatest asset), but it can also become a liability that I have to keep mindful of in situations like this.

It's entirely doable. Just a rather stressful position to be in.

[FlowerChild]

To bring things back to a more positive note, just wanted to share a screenshot of my Saturn V styling launch when I ran the Mk1-2 tests last night I previously mentioned:

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I just remembered that I thought "man...that looks cool...I should post a screenshot of it" when I launched, but forgot to do so in the panic of my epic reentry event ;)

The silver parts underneath the command module are some new larger batteries I've added to tech level 6 to match the large radius rockets being built at that tech level. They have the same weight to energy ratio as the smaller ones, and are just there for design convenience and to reduce part count on the big boys.

[jorgebonafe]

After making some stupid mistakes over and over again, I now find myself making checklists before every landing and every re-entry...

Launch:
- SAS on, Rcs on (keep rocket lined up on launch)
- deactivate batteries and electricity draw on cockpit (this one killed me so many times... I'll send a transmition on air, the cockpit is drained, pilot dies on re-entry...)

Re-entry:
- Turn batteries back on cockpit...

Its funny to me how I find myself emulating something done in real life purely for gameplay reasons... Turns out double checking everything keeps you alive :)

I installed another plugin, called Research and Development Overview:

http://kerbalspaceport.com/rdoverview3/

It basically just shows you what experiments you have done already so you can keep track. It doesn't show the ones you need to do, so its not exploity... Its very useful, specially because several times I got interrupted in a transmition and didn't get the full science for a particular experiment and quickly lost track of those...

Anyway, having a lot of fun with this game...

[FlowerChild]

Well, I think I'm happy with the balance of tech level 6 now...

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Put the whole Apollo style mission thing through its paces today, and even without transferring crew through docking clamps, the ladder thing isn't *too* bad at present. It's very easy to set your ladders up to perform the initial transfer from command module to landing pod, it's just a bit of a nuisance to get the ladders to align again once you dock. I regret not taking a few more screenshots during the mission, but you can see the ladders attached to my docking clamp in the screenshot above.

Working on placing some of the aircraft parts for a decent progression on them right now before putting out a release, but the above was really the big one, so I'm quite pleased to be over the hump so to speak.

[E.B. Farnham]

Ahh nice, I've been trying a few Apollo style missions myself. The ladder transfer thing is actually pretty fun I thought. Makes that docking just a little more complex. Getting the alignment right means you need well balanced RCS thrusters and such.

I tried my hand a making a few videos of my 4th mission to the Mun and my second landing. They're not great as I've never tried my hand at putting a vid on the oohtubes. I'm still figuring out the editing software so there's no flash in them but you might find them interesting. Sadly the actual landing footage was lost to a crash which corrupted it. I'm planning to capture the next landing.







Well done if you can sit through 50 minutes of footage, I only figured out how to speed up the video on the last one. :)

Looking forward to the next release.

[PatriotBob]

I just finished playing through tier 6, and the ladders on the side for the apollo-like mission wasn't bad.
Any concern I would have had is pretty much cleared up when you said you're were still working on it.

Really want solar panels...

[FlowerChild]

Well done if you can sit through 50 minutes of footage, I only figured out how to speed up the video on the last one. :)

Sweet! I didn't watch all 50 minutes, but I did skip through it and watch the crucial bits :)

Very nice man. It's super gratifying to pull off a big multistage mission like that isn't it? I think that's a big part of what's motivating me here: to motivate people by providing practical reasons to do so to shoot for more complex mission profiles.

Here's a screenshot of my Apollo 11 equivalent for comparison (landing module already pictured above):

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Closeup of the top stages:

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I think my design approach may be a tad more minimalist. I barely have enough life support in my landing module for the command to make a full Munar orbit and for me to rendezvous with it afterwards ;)

Looking forward to the next release.

Should be very soon. Like I said, just want to tweak a few things about the aircraft stuff at tech level 6, then partially flesh out tech level 7, and should be good to go :)

I just finished playing through tier 6, and the ladders on the side for the apollo-like mission wasn't bad.
Any concern I would have had is pretty much cleared up when you said you're were still working on it.

Well, I'm likely going to leave that one for a bit. I wanted to test out the ladder thing as I was considering re-enabling RCS on space suits at that tech level so I could put aside the docking clamp crew transfer thing for now, and in the end decided that the ladder thing is at least a decent placeholder for the time being.

It achieves the design goal at least, which is to provide a practical reason for docking at tech level 6, instead of just getting reasonably close then doing a spacewalk over (which is *much* easier).

Really want solar panels...

They're coming at tech level 7 man (the first crappy one anyways). Earlier would break the entire progression.

[E.B. Farnham]

Sweet! I didn't watch all 50 minutes, but I did skip through it and watch the crucial bits :)

Haha yeah, I will have to figure out how to edit and such. It was really quite the sense of achievement when I got my first landing down. Though that was more of a minimalist effort. My second mission failed to land as I didn't think I had enough power and called it off so as not to endanger the crew. Poor bastards only got to do an orbit of the Mun.

So Munpollo 4 was tricked out with safety margins on it's safety margins. I've refined the design a bit more since but until I unlock lateral decouplers and fit a rover in there somewhere it's pretty much set. I've done 5 landings now though I've avoided buying any tier 7 upgrades for now. I get a strange thrill when I see all those flags on the Mun. Each attempt has it's own little story.

The only real shame is that there isn't more to do on the Mun itself. I was thinking wouldn't it be nice if you had to take a few soil samples from around where you landed and that it took some time to get each one. Once you had enough you can then get the science reward, something to give you a purpose for spending more game-time running around on the surface a bit. I'm kind of hoping Squad flesh out that bit of the game some. Maybe add some little tasks like set up a reflector, play some golf or drop a hammer and a feather, for science of course. ;)

By far though my most satisfying Mun landings.

Here's a screenshot of my Apollo 11 equivalent for comparison (landing module already pictured above):

Great rocket you got there, it didn't occur to me to stage the big orange tanks. So my rocket is super ass heavy for the launch which is tricky to fly, if you overturn you tumble.

My first and second launches where of a similar scale but then I decided it was time to scale up and add moar boosters. ;) Starting your landings with less, so as to work out the requirements and keep things more manageable is the way to go I think, work out your mental checklist first to avoid unfortunate circumstances later. Then you scale it up to find what the limits are on that side of things. You learn more that way I reckon.

[FlowerChild]

The only real shame is that there isn't more to do on the Mun itself.

Yeah, I agree there. I am trying to partially compensate with the surface sample experiments being biome specific, so you at least have a reason to drive a rover around the Mun at tech level 7, but it really would be nice if there were a wider range of activities to keep it engaging.

Hopefully we'll get more of that as vanilla becomes more fleshed out, although Squad's attitude towards the campaign as a tutorial makes me rather pessimistic about it.

[Battlecat]

Sounds like you've got some neat stuff coming in the next release Flowerchild. I'm looking forward to it!

I expect my eventual moon shot will result in the deaths of many Kerbals if my early experiments with manned flight this weekend were any indication. On the bright side, I know where the lower/upper atmosphere and atmosphere/vacuum boundary layers are located now. :-)

Some of my designs have been grossly overambitious and overpowered. It seems to be a very easy trap to fall into, even with a reduced parts available. I only realized late in my recent session how much mileage you can get out of building small rockets rather than huge ones.

[FlowerChild]

Some of my designs have been grossly overambitious and overpowered. It seems to be a very easy trap to fall into, even with a reduced parts available. I only realized late in my recent session how much mileage you can get out of building small rockets rather than huge ones.

Yeah, that was one of the things I was trying to emphasize with the early tech tree: that you can do an awful lot with very little, and that often times bigger rockets are actually way less efficient.

I think until we get an economy model though, and people are inspired to use less parts to save money, it may be a lesson that's missed by many.

[E.B. Farnham]

Yeah, I agree there. I am trying to partially compensate with the surface sample experiments being biome specific, so you at least have a reason to drive a rover around the Mun at tech level 7, but it really would be nice if there were a wider range of activities to keep it engaging.

Hopefully we'll get more of that as vanilla becomes more fleshed out, although Squad's attitude towards the campaign as a tutorial makes me rather pessimistic about it.

I didn't actually realise the surface samples weren't biome specific. I haven't played the vanilla campaign as it's just too far from what I would have liked it to be to really interest me. Well thank jebus you did that as that's what's driving my progression now. I'm planning landings close to the borders of biomes so that when I do get rovers I can hit up two or maybe three with a single mission. It seems so counter intuitive to not have them biome specific.

Yeah I'm not holding out too much hope in Squad for the career mode. I was very much all kinds of what the fuck when I saw how they planned to use career mode. It just doesn't jibe. There's a fantastic game experience that could be made using the system they've designed but they seem to have not seen it. I still love KSP though, just irks me that it isn't all it could be.

[E.B. Farnham]

Sounds like you've got some neat stuff coming in the next release Flowerchild. I'm looking forward to it!

Some of my designs have been grossly overambitious and overpowered. It seems to be a very easy trap to fall into, even with a reduced parts available. I only realized late in my recent session how much mileage you can get out of building small rockets rather than huge ones.

Yeah all designs start getting hit by diminishing returns the bigger they get and efficiency drops off like a rock pretty quickly. Also how you perform your gravity turn on launch has a huge effect on the amount of fuel it takes to hit orbit. How steep or shallow the curve, what height you begin to turn at, what orbital height you're aiming for, etc. I recommend playing around with it to learn how to pull as efficient a curve as possible. Fuel saved at the launch stage goes a long way once you're in space.

[Stormweaver]

I have to admit, I've fallen into the "7 mainsails will lift everything" Mindset far too often. My last playthrough was done with a minimalist feel in mind though (with lots and lots of reverting to vech assembly) and worked rather well.

Making a point of at least not using the 'big' rockets unless the payload is the same diameter definitely helps though. Makes getting into orbit a lot more fun than sticking your probe on top of an orange tank and not having to decouple until you're a few hundred m/s from orbit.

[E.B. Farnham]

I have to admit, I've fallen into the "7 mainsails will lift everything" Mindset far too often. My last playthrough was done with a minimalist feel in mind though (with lots and lots of reverting to vech assembly) and worked rather well.

Haha yeah more Mainsails, moar boosters, more struts has often been the path to hell. In vanilla I tend to sit down and design the best launchers I can for a variety of weights. Usually 5, 10, 25, 50 and 100 ton lifters. Then just save those and when needed slap the payload on top. I'll probably do the same in BTSM once I have radial decouplers.

[Battlecat]

Yeah all designs start getting hit by diminishing returns the bigger they get and efficiency drops off like a rock pretty quickly. Also how you perform your gravity turn on launch has a huge effect on the amount of fuel it takes to hit orbit. How steep or shallow the curve, what height you begin to turn at, what orbital height you're aiming for, etc. I recommend playing around with it to learn how to pull as efficient a curve as possible. Fuel saved at the launch stage goes a long way once you're in space.

No doubt. I think rocket engineers call it the tyranny of the rocket equation. Get out of earth's gravity well and you're halfway to anywhere in the solar system. :-)

[FlowerChild]

I didn't actually realise the surface samples weren't biome specific.

Oh no, that's not what I meant. I think they *are* biome specific in vanilla (pretty much everything is), it's just one of the few experiments I've left that way in BTSM, due to all the balance issues with only having biomes on some planets, and not wanting to turn KSP into Kerbal-Kart by motivating people to run all over Kerbin for their science like is done in vanilla :)

In the case of surface samples, I've balanced them to be pretty low worth in general to accommodate the 15 or so biomes on the Mun, and then boosted the value of the EVA experiment (which can only be done on the surface of celestial bodies now) to provide the big reward for landing Kerbals on other planets later.

Most of that balance is in the upcoming release though, with the tech level 6 you currently have just being a very rough pass I did previously.

[PatriotBob]

They're coming at tech level 7 man (the first crappy one anyways). Earlier would break the entire progression.

Oh I know that, it's more a statement of really really wanting them for progression, not that I thought they should be there sooner.

[dawnraider]

As far as small size goes, it definitely pays off to use small designs early, as in my most recent shot at the game, after learning the ropes a bit, I realized how far you could get using small rockets. I have one design that I nicknamed the 'Tin Can,' which was just a probe slapped on the top of seven small boosters (this was my very first rocket in this save, so it had no control) and managed to launch it into high orbit (about 265 km I think was its apoapsis). I have also gotten fairly far using a design adopted and modified from FC using four small boosters (his had three) with a probe/cockpit on top and parachutes on the boosters, then later upgraded to liquid fuel.

Even my ship for first getting into orbit was rather minimal, only consisting of 2 stages with 4 liquid engines total, and a couple large boosters. It unfortunately did not achieve full orbit (periapsis of 50 km, so it slowly drifts towards the planet and will eventually crash, as it aerobrakes every time it nears the periapsis) as it had barely too little fuel, mostly because I wasted some getting up by continuing to burn fuel after my apoapsis was way above where it needed to be, so it ended up being something like 175 km at first.

[E.B. Farnham]

Oh no, that's not what I meant. I think they *are* biome specific in vanilla (pretty much everything is), it's just one of the few experiments I've left that way in BTSM, due to all the balance issues with only having biomes on some planets, and not wanting to turn KSP into Kerbal-Kart by motivating people to run all over Kerbin for their science like is done in vanilla :)
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Ahh righty I get ya. I never did understand the taking soil samples on Kerbin thing. Surely that would be more for the Kerbal Geological Program.

Makes sense to have the EVA give you the loot, so to speak, that first step on the soil of another world is kind of a big deal. (Though in the case of Eve it's more the getting back off again) ;)

[FlowerChild]

Makes sense to have the EVA give you the loot, so to speak, that first step on the soil of another world is kind of a big deal. (Though in the case of Eve it's more the getting back off again) ;)

Just out of curiosity: did you notice the experiment description on your first EVA on the Mun? Don't spoil it for people, but I was kinda proud of that one ;)

[FlowerChild]

FYI: New version of Deadly Reentry continued, which is supposed to fix the explode on launch or vehicle switch bug, has just been released:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/thr ... ntinued-v4

It should also allow me to eliminate the install order dependency on the next release of BTSM, which is very good news :)