Kerbal Space Program

[Ulminati]

Played this a bit yesterday. I didn't touch the previous update (economic boom?) at all, so it felt good to be stuck back in.

As per protocol, I started by stuffing it full of mods. Off the top of my head: Ferram Aerospace, Deadly Reentry, B5 Rocket Pack, Universal Storage, Kerbal Attachment System, Kerbal Engineeer, DMagic Orbital Science, Docking Port Alignment Indicator, Kerbal Alarm Clock, TAC Life Support, Karbonite, Karbonite+, Astronomers visuals, Infernal Robotics, Final Frontier... Probably a few more I forgot.

Started a new career, normal mode. Did a bunch of launches (launch + 5km, 11km+test parachite in flight, 22km+reach space, orbit+test stuffie in flight...)
I only just got access to materials experiment because I haven't been able to farm soil samples + EVA reports. I still won't be able to EVA actually, since I only have ~37000 Kerbucks. And this is in spite of a 96%+ recovery rate on every mission (entire vessel recovered near KSP). Seems like the mission payout is tiny and the buildings are going to take a while to upgrade.

I approve.

 

[Data4]

TACLS is working for you? Or did I miss the update? That fucking mod... It can be such a PITA, but I can't play with out it.

 

[Hellraiser]

FYI the producer guy confirmed that the development focus after this update is aerodynamics and resources, although I doubt both will get into 0.91 even despite him saying we can expect those. Here's hoping stock re-entry heat makes it in as a hard mode option and that once resources get added we'll get a new, more distant gas giant with some new moons. I wonder if they'll implement the old unused detector dish and drill models or make new ones.

Lock to retrograde makes rendezvous so smooth now, I love it. I can't even begin to imagine how smooth it is with lock to target.

Also once you get the OKTO and later HECS there is not much point in pilots. A hecs is just 600 funds or so, negligible extra mass and power requirement. Compared to getting another crew part for one more Kerbal it is a bargain. The only advantage is you can technically get a high level pilot sooner, although it is impossible to level beyond level 2 without going interplanetary and back. So it is a bit of a moot point.

Overall skills feel pretty weak, engineers are the only ones which are actually irreplaceable, but their use is situational. Scientists should also increase transmission ratios (with processing labs and a high level scientist you should have nearly no loss, in the 80-90% range). Although between contracts giving science and R&D outsourcing you're just swimming in science without even using them.

There is of course the fact that classes have yet to get any new abilities or perks for level 5 and level 4 (besides scientists), so they'll probably add something more down the road. Here's hoping level 4 and 5 pilots do something that actually makes you want to use them instead of a probe. Engineers being able to to macgyver and place struts, batteries and small solar panels in EVA from that old toolbox part which never got implemented would be great. Or connecting vessels with fuel lines like from KAS, pretty necessary to make surface refueling bases viable. Scientists could allow better data on resource pockets or something in addition to science.

SPP parts integrated into stock are great, with proper compatibility between rocket and spaceplane parts there is actually a point to unlocking them.

Even with base contracts orbital/surface bases themselves feel rather useless, resources will hopefully change that.

Most fun I have with career mode now is trying to do as many contracts in one expedition, especially combining manned landing expeditions with aerial and surface survey missions.

 

[Hellraiser]

Holy fuck, I just got this contract, take note of one of the objectives:

E class is pretty small, problem is I have no tracking station upgrade. Might have been tempted to grab this contract if I had.

Speaking of which it would be great if a ringed gas giant had randomly spawning rocks in orbits around it. Not too many, but enough to make it fairly interesting for mining.

 

[Ulminati]

You better take that mission for your let's play!

 

[Hellraiser]

You better take that mission for your let's play!

Impossible as I had no tracking station upgrade for unknown object tracking.

 

[Jaedar]

:ihavenoideawhatimdoing:

Spoiler

It worked though. Flying plane is hella hard, I don't even want to think about doing a legit landing.

 

[Ulminati]

Everything in KSP is hella hard until you've done it 3-4 times. Then it becomes easy. :3

Parachutes on spaceplanes is A Good Thing though. They're expensive and prone to flipping the fuck out during reentry because the centre of mass has shifted after burning fuel.

 

[Alienman]

I have not played this for ages, so I have a question. Does Kerbal feel like a game now with the latest update?

I adored the game when I played it, but putting satellites in space and such is only fun for so long when there is no "game" reason to do so

 

[Jaedar]

Everything in KSP is hella hard until you've done it 3-4 times. Then it becomes easy. :3

Parachutes on spaceplanes is A Good Thing though. They're expensive and prone to flipping the fuck out during reentry because the centre of mass has shifted after burning fuel.

That was a strictly earthbound plane . Used it to complete one of those "survey area X missions".

I have not played this for ages, so I have a question. Does Kerbal feel like a game now with the latest update?

I adored the game when I played it, but putting satellites in space and such is only fun for so long when there is no "game" reason to do so

The career mode now gives you tasks to choose from, and you have to manage your funding and science development to go further. And you want to go further, because that's the best way to unlock more science and more fun parts to build with (and the cash to use them).

I'm still trying to get to mun though. It's way harder than it looks.

 

[Hellraiser]

I have not played this for ages, so I have a question. Does Kerbal feel like a game now with the latest update?

I adored the game when I played it, but putting satellites in space and such is only fun for so long when there is no "game" reason to do so

Short answer yes, but it still need more stuff, fleshing out of mechanics and some kind of "end" goal.

Long answer: basic career mode frameworks are in. You get money for doing randomly generated contracts (as well as reputation and sometimes science), you use money to pay for the craft you launch, upgrade base facilities allowing you to build bigger spacecraft, unlock new functionality (EVA for Kerbals, collecting surface samples, navigation tools), prototype researched parts. Contracts range from "test part in conditions X, Y and Z" or "do science in X" or "plant flag on X" to "survey ALL these random points on celestial body X in flight/on the surface" or "put satellite in a specific orbit around X with minimal deviation" or "capture an A class asteroid, build a space station on it and send it to orbit X".

Oh, and especially survey contracts give you reasons to explore shit and do shit you would not consider, for example the poles of most bodies. Or flying really silly suborbital trajectories to get that one survey waypoint only to crash into the surface

Rovers actually have a use now, they're pretty much mandatory for surface survey contracts unless it is a very low gravity body like Minmus.

Planes are also useful for the same reason, although at the moment only on Kerbin and Laythe. Hybrid jet/rover survey planes are probably the best source of cash in the game. Drop a rover tanker with the CLAW (advanced grabbing unit, meant to capture asteroids but it also allows docking without docking ports) on Laythe and filled with liquid fuel.

Satellites are decent, if you stuck a reusable experiment module (thermometer, or better, the gravity sensor) after a "put satellite into orbit Y around X" contract they can be used to farm "collect science from space around X" contracts.

Space stations and surface bases are still mostly useless, resource mining for deep space refueling is supposed to be added soon(tm) though so that will change. But currently you only create one for a contract asking you to do it. Also in theory you can use them to increase the transmission science value of experiment data, but science at the moment is hardly a bottleneck.

You can see most of that in my LP, IIRC out of the new stuff from the past year or so it only doesn't show asteroid capture so far (which reminds me I need to do that for the next LP update, beside the rescue mission).

 

[Alienman]

Hey thanks for the quick answers. Still not 100% sure if I should dive in or not, don't want to get burnt out again before the release
But it sure sounds like there is a game in there now and that's nice.

One thing though. Beta. Don't that mean feature complete? Like it won't be that much added after this?

I will check out your LP Hellraiser

 

[Ulminati]

One thing though. Beta. Don't that mean feature complete? Like it won't be that much added after this?

Resource extraction (like Kethane/Karbonite mods9 is supposed to be added in one of the next 2 updates.

 

[Alienman]

Ah cool. But what exactly do that mean? Is it to get free fuel? I'm guessing base building will have to be done to get those resources

 

[Ulminati]

Ah cool. But what exactly do that mean? Is it to get free fuel? I'm guessing base building will have to be done to get those resources

You can check out Karbonite or Kethane. Those are both mods that do what SQUAD is planning to do. The idea is that there's going to be resources on other planets that you can scan for, extract and convert (into fuel, for instance). They used to have plans for multiple fuel types (the NERVA nuclear engine would use different fuel from the LV909 for instance). I'm not sure if they've scrapped that idea or not.

The vast majority of the fuel you use in a mission is to get your rocket from the surface of Kerbin into orbit. Imagine if you could refuel your ship once you got there. That's what resource extraction is good for. In my current save (using Karbonite), I have a delicious fuel setup on the Mun.

- There's 2 satellites in polar orbits around the mun that have been scanning for resources
- There's an orbital base (lovingly referred to as Space Statoil) with a bunch of tanks and conversion modules
- I've got an extraction ship with drills and extra storage docket on the orbital base

When I do interplanetary missions, I first send my ships to the mun, dock with Space Statoil and refill their nearly empty tanks.
When Space Statoil runs low on fuel reserves, the drill is sent down to the Munar surface to retrieve more Karbonite.

In theory it'd be even more efficient to mine on minmus (even lower gravity), but it'd make it more time consuming to rendezvous with the fuel depot from Kerbin. If you're planning to do many missions to an area like Jool and its moons, you can also save a bundle on launches by sending a fuel refinery up there and producing your own fuel for the return trip and planet hopping.

 

[Alienman]

That sounds really cool, way too advanced for me atm though. I decided to start to play, and man is it tough to relearn everything. But something to look forward to at least, let's hope they make it part of the vanilla game.

Btw. When you use orbit mode, how do you place theoretical orbits? In the old version you just right clicked on the orbit thingy, but that does not seem to work now. Can't figure out how to

 

[Hellraiser]

Btw. When you use orbit mode, how do you place theoretical orbits? In the old version you just right clicked on the orbit thingy, but that does not seem to work now. Can't figure out how to

In career mode you need to first upgrade the tracking station AND the mission control building to unlock manoeuvre planning.

Also some other things they will add are reworked aerodynamics and multiplayer. Plus the current career frameworks will get expanded (mostly notably Kerbal experience).

 

[Alienman]

Ah okay. Thanks. Got to say, career feels a bit grindy. Doing the same kind of missions over and over again for some pitiful "science". Maybe it changes.

 

[Ashery]

Ah okay. Thanks. Got to say, career feels a bit grindy. Doing the same kind of missions over and over again for some pitiful "science". Maybe it changes.

Meh, it didn't change for me.

If I play again it'll be on a modded "Science" game running with 50% science returns. I'd lose out on the building upgrades, which I love as a concept, but "Career" is just too damn grindy.

 

[Hellraiser]

0.91 news:

- aerodynamics reworks, new editor GUI tools for better plane design
- resources probably not in this update, but definitely in the one after it, confirmed only for refuelling, will possibly use the old parts and code that got mothballed after the resource system got put on hold
- aerodynamics, not FAR nor NEAR, but they are supposed to work more similar to reality, overall generating lift will be easier as wings at the moment suck at their job (duna planes buff? )
- cargo bays, nose-cones and general streamlining of the rocket shape is supposed to matter
- "we want something that needs fairings" - stock payload fairings confirmed?
- parts and tech tree rebalancing/reshaping coming up

As a bonus here's some other stuff:

An improvement of the SpaceX recoverable stage landing video:

http://giant.gfycat.com/ExemplaryBeneficialAmericanlobster.webm

and the sequel to 360 orbits no mechjeb:



I nearly died out of laughter at the X-Files bit.

 

[Jaedar]

I still haven't made it to Mun. Too hard.

 

[Hellraiser]

I still haven't made it to Mun. Too hard.

What is the main snag in the road for you anyway? Lifter/transfer/lander stage design or the Munshot flight itself?

For the rocket, copy the lifter and transfer stage I used in the LP and build any lander you wish, the lifter is fairly cheap, simple, low-tech and reliable. Copy the staging sequence. Experiment with a similar desing and keep trying if flight is the problem (see below for flight tips).

Lifter: two rockmax 32 tanks, two S1 SRB-KD25k (the biggest ones), Skipper engine. Anything with similar amount of fuel and thrust for the liquid fuel parts will do. Ditch SRBs first.
Transfer (and orbital insertion, I think): two FL-T800 tanks, LV-T30 engine.
Lander: you want this with a wide base and either LV-909 or a Rockomax 48/7s, lightest thing you have with sufficient thrust to lift off the Mun. Munar gravity is about 1/8th of Kerbin's. So for every ton of lander mass you need about 1,3 kN of thrust (engine thrust in game is listed in kN). You can use actual landing legs or girders that you start with, makes no difference. No ladders are needed as EVA packs have sufficient power to get Kerbonaut down from the capsule and back up.

Images for reference:

The actual Munshot? 75% of the job is just knowing how to get in orbit without wasting too much fuel.

First of all, never thrust too much when at low altitude. Atmospheric drag will cause you to waste fuel. Try to not go faster than 150 m/s at 5km, 200 m/s at 10km. That sort of approach is close to optimal as far as fuel efficiency goes.

Second of all, don't burn straight up all the way to space, at 15-20km tilt towards east (depends how stable your rocket is). I usually go 45 degree pitch to 20 degree pitch gradually as I gain velocity. The idea is to have most of your thrust going into you gaining velocity rather than fighting gravity. Getting into orbit is not fighting gravity, it is moving so fast that the rate of "falling" combined with your velocity is making you go in circles. You want to get just minimally above atmo (70km) and burn horizontally/parallel to the surface. That raises your altitude more efficiently than burning up.

The transfer is easy. Get into a stable low orbit (above atmo, duh), burn horizontally (in parallel with the surface) when you see the mun rise above Kerbin. Turn on Orbital Map View, you can control your thrust from it as well, and it lets you see if your orbit reaches the Mun yet. Burn until you see the orbital path pretty much. Cut engines, timewarp until the encounter (not too much or you may crash into the Mun or overshoot it before you can react).

Munar orbital injection, once you are within the Mun's sphere of influence wait until your periapsis around the Mun. At periapsis burn retrograde (point craft to the green marker with the crossed-out circle on the navball) to slow down until you are in a circular orbit.

Landing, lower orbit to a circular orbit about 10-20km above the surface (burn retrograde at apoapsis). When at 10km, burn retrograde until you start falling straight down (retrograde marker is pointing straight down). From there just burn retrograde to slow down as necessary, aim for a landing velocity of about 2-5 m/s, 10 m/s at most (if you have landing legs). Retograde marker must be straigh below you!

Tutorial with more stuff.

 

[Jaedar]

First of all, never thrust too much when at low altitude. Atmospheric drag will cause you to waste fuel. Try to not go faster than 150 m/s at 5km, 200 m/s at 10km. That sort of approach is close to optimal as far as fuel efficiency goes.

This is especially good information. I don't want to look to much at your craft designs, cause I want to learn to do this properly myself

 

[Hellraiser]

FYI resources are still planned for 0.91, it's just that they didn't write a dev blog on them yet.

Also Kerbals will finally be able to climb ledges, so ladder testing will be less time consuming. Some new EVA animations are comming, perhaps they'll finally use the old surface sample animation from eons ago (did they forget about it?).

 

[Drax]

New devnote thingy:

Felipe (HarvesteR): Development is progressing nicely along several fronts this week. Everyone is working on something of their own, but I’ll leave that to each one to write about. On my end, I’ve been doing my part on the aerodynamics overhaul, but also picking up long-standing issues and unfinished features that were left from previous updates.

This week, I finished up the new lift model for the lifting and control surfaces which I started last week. I also revised the fuel flow logic for air-breathing engines. To support things like wet wings and such in the future, turbine engines now drain resources evenly from all tanks in a stage (the stage grouping allows setting up drop-tanks and such). This should also help with maintaining a balanced craft as fuel is drained out, and reduce the need to use fuel lines excessively.

Other than that, I was able to get a feature I had to leave out a long time ago up to a nearly complete state now. I call it ‘TimeWarp-To’. Basically, it lets you select a point ahead of you in your trajectory, and have the game auto-warp up to that point as fast as is reasonable (given the time gap).

This feature was delayed because of the time needed to work out how to deal with the warp limits near planetary surfaces, to stop warping just before any maneuvers you may have set, and also because I wanted to add a time warp limit when approaching an SOI transition. The autowarp system will respect those limits, and step up warp again as soon as conditions allow.

Lastly, I’ve gone over the joystick mapping system, and fixed issues with mapping becoming invalid in new game sessions, as I’ve found that Unity’s device list will change across sessions, whenever you plug anything new to a USB port, so we couldn’t rely on device indices to map joystick bindings. Now, not only is this fixed, KSP now supports up to 11 joysticks, each with up to 20 axes.

Finally, today I’m back to working on the aerodynamics again, this time on a new UI overlay for the editor, which should help visualizing the air-worthiness of a spaceplane before taking to the tarmac. More on that as it develops into something worth showing. At the moment there is very little to actually see.

Alex (aLeXmOrA): January 17th, it marked the 4th year of me working at Squad. I can’t believe it’s been that long with all the things that have happened and all the things I learned from. It’s been a really cool and amazing experience, I must say. Hope I can stick around for more years and learn even more things. Right now, I’m working on some tasks I left unfinished for KerbalEDU, tasks that were not necessary for the release last year, but that will help to improve license managing for the users.

Marco (Samssonart): Sorry, I can’t really say much this time, I’ve been working on a highly experimental project we’re not even sure is going to be a thing yet, we’ll have to see how it progresses.

Daniel (danRosas): Getting three things ready before the end of the month. Two are still being under pen and paper, so I still don’t have much to discuss about those. The other one is that I successfully updated the rig for animations, I’m still having some minor issues with some multiplyDivide nodes, that are giving trouble to the twist of the Kerbal spine. The rig we’ve been using until now had only a couple of IK handles at the top and the bottom. I’m looking into having a couple of FK for the sanity of the animation process.

Jim (Romfarer): This week I’ve been focusing on the new Engineer’s Report app which will replace the Craft Info app. We are keeping everything in the old app, changing the app name and adding a new feature to it: Design Concerns. This is a list of possible problems for your vessel all ranging from simple possibly unimportant issues to crucial errors which will render your vessel unflyable. We already have a list of design concerns in the works but we are always looking for suggestions. So what are the things you “always” forget about when designing a vessel?

Max (Maxmaps): We’ve had several meetings around the office both for the final touches of the update plan and for several events in the near and long term future of KSP. The update blog turned into something far larger and cooler, and you’ll get to see what I mean before the week is over. Forgive the devs if they’re a little skinny on the notes this time around, as you’ll be getting a deep look into what they’re working on very soon.

Ted (Ted): Work is still progressing on the balancing, thanks for the PMs from last week. There were a fair bunch. I’ll have replied to them all within the week. Other than the balancing, I’ve been working on establishing the changes needed on our bug tracker to have it operate more efficiently both in the manner that /we/ use it and the manner that the public use it.

Additionally, I’ve been playing catch-up with the Dev Team and ensuring that the changes and additions they’re making are documented for the QA Team to follow along with. This prevents any members of the QA Team being left in the dark on changes that are made and thus being unable to competently QA the changes.

Lastly, with the assistance of the QA Team and a member of the community, I’ve been going over the dialogs in the tutorials and correcting any errors in them as well as reformatting them for ease of reading.

One final note, I saw in various KSP communities around the Web that Felipe’s mention of a Unity upgrade last week was speculated to be to Unity 5. I should clarify that we’ve upgraded to Unity 4.6.1, not Unity 5.

Anthony (Rowsdower): I’ve been taking care of some things on the KSP-TV front. Talking to perspective streamers, devising and taking feedback on new intros and outros are part of the equation, too. I’ve got to deal with some further strategy on the branding of the channel, as well. If any of you are apt to answer, what draws you into watching our regular KSP-TV streamers?

Rogelio (Roger): Lately I’ve been working on more proposals for kerbal t shirts, exploring new illustration styles for kerbals. As soon as we have approved proposals, we’ll show you. Also I’ve been improving the orange kerbal space suit, adding more detail to the model and improving the textures. It will take some time cause we’ll need to re-do the rig for the new model. It will be improved too.


Kasper (KasperVld): Progress on a few fronts has slowed down, for example we’re pretty much done evaluating the new forum software, and are now waiting for its development to be completed and we’re looking to have a few more questions answered. Time to get the lid off of this one then: we’re looking to upgrade to IPS 4 once it’s available. If you for some reason are curious as to what IPS 4 looks like and how it works, the only public install I know is located on the official IPS website. A new forum means a good time to apply changes, and I’m looking to see if there would be a benefit to having a KSP themed forum, instead of using an out-of-the-box forum layout. What do you think? Let me know in the comments.

Good stuff it's a-coming