Kerbal Space Program

[Ulminati]

Communications seems easy, thanks.

They can get hard with Remotetech. I once drove a rover over a cliff on the mun, because the satellite that gave me an uplink back to kerbin went below the horizon.

So in sandbox mode, what do scientific instruments do?

Nothing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Scientific instruments are mainly for unlocking SCIENCE (and through SCIENCE, more parts) in Science/Career mode. You can use them to larp with I guess. SCANsat (also a mod) gives you height maps though, and integrates with the multi-function display in rasterpropmonitor if you want to hav ea map of your potential landing site in IVA

Let's say I want to put some things like a scanner on my probe (orbiter mostly), but don't want to figure out everything by trial error. What will the instruments give me that is no possible without them?

Again, mostly for use outside sandbox mode. SCANSat will give you height maps and help you find anomalies. Magnetometer boom can be handy if you use interstellar, since the magnetic flux will help you pinpoint where to harvest antimatter.

What about the unidentified objects between Kerbin and Duna, are they asteroids?

Yep. Try hauling one home and crashing it into kerbal space center!

I also thought about putting on as much as I can and see what it does, but somehow that's not the scientific way.

Instruments generally come in 3 vareities. The ones you use in orbit, the ones you use in atmospher eand th eones you use on the ground. Beyond not putting things like a seismometer on an orbiter probe or a telescope on a rover, there's no real deep magic here. You want as many science stuffies as possible in a biome so you can harvest all the XP. There was a mod - whose name escapes me at the moment - that let you gain science by crashing shit into planets and recording the impacts with a seismometer on a landed vessel.

 

[Burning Bridges]

So in sandbox mode, what do scientific instruments do?

Nothing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Scientific instruments are mainly for unlocking SCIENCE (and through SCIENCE, more parts) in Science/Career mode. You can use them to larp with I guess. SCANsat (also a mod) gives you height maps though, and integrates with the multi-function display in rasterpropmonitor if you want to hav ea map of your potential landing site in IVA

I figured out that I can produce fuel in space, but need to find resources to do so. So isn't a point to science besides "campaign" mode?

I also want scanners and telescopes, yes. I guess I'll get both Orbital Science and Scansat mod and put as much on my probe as I can. The Sarnus systems looks really interesting to me, much better than the stock Jool system!

 

[Ulminati]

Burning Bridges

There's a non-science scanner for finding resources (it maps resources but it doesn't produce science). You have to fly it over planets to find out where they are, then land and drill + convert it as far as I know. Honestly, I'm set in my ways and still use Karbonite for resource mining, even though there's a stock resource now.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Looks like I better figure it out in space. I put ca 200kg instruments on the probe (including all scanners) and it's actually much more fun than I thought.

The athmospheres in the EVE Mod have changed my experience for me dramatcically.
Getting through a cloud layer at 5000m, wow, first time the game felt right to me (after 4 years)!
Even the main menu looks so much more realistic with clouds on Kerbin.

Getting payload into orbit seems easy. Although control has become more difficult. I'm fine as long as I don't exceed ca 200 m/s too early, and that was already answered on a previous page.

One problem is right now I don't understand how much energy the instruments drain. But if I carry some reserve batteries it's fine. It also means there is now a point to having radioisotope generators AND solar panels. Well, I haven't even looked into the new fuel cells yet.

Also, are there a reason against carrying all scanners on the same probe? I have LO, HI and Multi, and they operate at different altitudes.
What is BTDT?

 

[potatojohn]

If you want to do science you should really play science sandbox IMO.

Also, am I misremembering or did mechjeb used to show ascend dV lost to gravity and drag? Where did that go?

 

[Burning Bridges]

Why? I am not interested in the campaign mode, science points and such.
But I like how much information in the sandbox is not available right from the start. I want to study the solar system, but I don't want to have any artificial rules (like money, science).

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

You could always edit your save to have as much money as you want. Same goes for science. You would then only have to worry about leveling your kerbals to do cool stuff. Some contract packs will guide you to all the fun anomalies etc.

Following the above advice may significantly reduce your prestige on the codex.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Anyway, I found a deltaV map for the outer planets mod.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/70266302/KSP Delta-V Map - OPM.png

Now my Voyager mission can take more concrete shape. I already see that Sarnus may need more deltaV than I have, so I might have to think about the interplanetary stage.

I'd also like to do a Jool flyby, but I still suck at flybys. Is there any simple way to get a swing from Jool to Sarnus, without knowing the exact position of Jool and Sarnus in advance? Doesn't need to be optimal, I'd just want to use what I can get.

OK a bit less than ca 7000 m/s to get from Kerbin orbit into orbit around one of Sarnus moons.
It can be done with a direct ascent (though I usually need much more than minimal). Let's say I plan for 8,000 to 10,000 m/s. But how much could Jool save me?

P.S. Also, is it normal that Tekto does not show up in the space center?

 

[Burning Bridges]

This may be the first case where I ditch a game because of too many mods
Today I tried to play Real Solar System + EVE Clouds + KSP 1.0.2
Seems this is pretty much impossible with the provisoric built of RSS
I guess it will be back to Outer planets + EVE then, but there only very few bodies that interest me

 

[Caim]

How difficult is it to land an asteroid near the Space Center once you have it in a stable orbit around Kerbin, going over the Space Center? Is it just a matter of slapping on a lot of parachutes and something to aim the thing towards the planet, or is it more difficult than that?

 

[Burning Bridges]

My first mission to Sarnus was at least a partial success. I managed to get into the system and so far the biggest success was a Slate encounter and flyby. This precursor mission was comparable to Pioneer, which also served to get experience before the "real" probes arrived.

However I did not have enough fuel to really do much, which brings me back to an old problem: I simply cannot figure out phase angles and launch windows. I launch at a random date, and my Sarnus transfer was 2700m/s when it should be only 1600 (according to the deltaV map). This also meant that I entered the system way too fast (almost 3000m/s) and coming from outside (which meant I would lack solar power for long times), so I had used up all m remaining fuel just to get captured. Therefore, no spectacular orbits around Slate/EEloo this time.

Since I cannot into orbital mechanics, the problem will be solved with brute force. The good news is that for the next mission I could almost double my deltaV from 8000m/s to 16,000, plus a little bit more from the orbital stage. For the first time I combined an Ion engine with 2 LV-1s. It's a rather complex stage but it should be better than Ion drive alone. That is because the LV1's give about 20 times as much thrust as the Ion drive, for the situations where you cannot have burns that take 20 minutes. (Edit: has the added advantage that chemical propulsion would work even in the shadow of the gas giants, which was a serious prob in the first flight)

Here is the basic idea (solar sails and other stuff are missing). The 2 (chemical) LV1 engines and the heavy 0,55t tank can be separated (upward) whenever I want. The remaining probe can continue operating for a very long time with the Ion drive (ca 8,000 deltaV). The novelty is that I can use the Ion drive for slow mid-course corrections, and save the chemical fuel for the critical orbital maneuvres inside Sarnus.

If somebody is interested in the propulsion system, here are my calculations and parts weights. DeltaV cannot be exactly calculated because it depends when the chemical propulsion system and its tank are used up and jettisoned. The worst case would be that the Ion drive has to carry 0,5 tons of liquid fuel piggy-back until the very end, but that's of course not going to happen. As soon as the chemical drive is gone, the Ion drive can operate with full efficiency.

Now concerning the scientific instruments. There is actually a lot of new stuff that I always wanted 2 years ago

For the sandbox science I am playing the ScanSat mod is actually very useful. It allows me to make radar maps of bodies, and it takes a very long time to complete the scanning, which makes it a very realistic mod. The radars also have power consumption, so I needed to re-design my spacecraft until I had enough power (another plus).

I am not so impressed with the other recommended mod Orbital Science. I have uninstalled it again because it does not add anything really new (only new text windows as far as I know).

I discovered another new mod that I like much more, Hullcam_VDS-0.40. This gives me several zoomable telescopes, which vary widely in weight and resolution. That's something I always wanted in KSP! I have already prepared a checkup mission to the Moon tonight, to see what can be done with the cameras. For the not-so close flybys of outer planets amd moons this should be absolutely fantastic stuff, just like Voyager, Gallileo, Cassini etc.

 

[potatojohn]

Mechjeb has a transfer planner that gives you an ETA to launch for planet intercepts and it shows the relevant angles. It can also create nodes, skipping the tedious angle eyeballing.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Yes, probably I need Mechjeb. I'm never really fond of so much add-on software and it detracts from the game, but it would help immensely.
And creating nodes would be just great because the stock interface is simply terrible.

 

[Ulminati]

Yes, probably I need Mechjeb. I'm never really fond of so much add-on software and it detracts from the game, but it would help immensely.
And creating nodes would be just great because the stock interface is simply terrible.

Kerbal Alarm Clock (why the fuck don't you have KAC?) lets you set an alarm for the next transfer window

 

[Burning Bridges]

Yeah, not much to say about communications. You stick on an antenna, transmit data and that's it.

But the Hullcam VDS mod fascinates me. Together with Distant Object Enhancement it can enhance every all objects, including craft in a certain radius, and Kerbal Space Center, to quite amazing detail. A must have for outer planet missions, where you quite often dont see anything for years.

Minmus from Kerbin orbit (!)

Duna from Kerbin orbit

Moon from Kerbin orbit (no zoom)

Moon from Kerbin orbit (this is the max resolution that I can get!)

Here are the two mods:
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/46365
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/98943-1-0-2-Distant-Object-Enhancement-bis-v1-5-5-(2-May-2015)

The only snag is that it does not increase terrain detail under 250km or so. So no ground zooming from low orbit But it's absolutely serviceable as an orbital telescope. I expect to spend a lot of time with this, especially when I have landed spacecraft to spot.

I also have some problems keeping the camera stable (realistic). Wasn't there a switch to "precise control" in the past? I think it was Left CTRL. Is that still possible somehow?

EDIT: Another problem is that the best telescope weighs half a ton, so it will fuck up my micro probe concept. But it's still worth it.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Yes, probably I need Mechjeb. I'm never really fond of so much add-on software and it detracts from the game, but it would help immensely.
And creating nodes would be just great because the stock interface is simply terrible.

Kerbal Alarm Clock (why the fuck don't you have KAC?) lets you set an alarm for the next transfer window

I have not played much for almost 2 years

 

[Ulminati]

Get Kerbal alarm clock.

In fact, if you go back a page or two I recommended a shitload of mods for 1.0

Made this list for another codexer and figured this thread can always use yet another mod list. Everything (except KAS) is compatible with newest version of KSP a tthe time of posting

Big ol' list o' mods
Note: KSP only uses 32 bits, so there's a hard cap on how much RAM it'll allow. If you're crashing at start-up, odds are you have too many mods installed and it ran out of memory. You can force opengl to save a few hundred mb of mem and squeeze in a few more mods. But until the latest version of Unity 64bit plays nice with KSP, we have a hard cap on # of mods we can run

All mods: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/55401-Community-Mods-and-Plugins-Library

"Mandatory"
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/97285-KSP-v1-0-2-Stock-Bug-Fix-Modules-(Release-v1-0-2c-2-9-May-15)-now-includes-Stock-Plus - Bugfixes
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/55219 - Lots of mods use modmanager to check they're up to date
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/60863 - Some mods still use this
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/59005 - Texture compressor. Use this if KSP crashes on launch to reduce memory usage of mods
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/24786 - Set up break points to stop timewarp. Remembers maneuver nodes. Critical if you're running multiple missions
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/18230 - Lots of extra vessel info. Very, very handy for building since it tells you DeltaV and TWR
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/47863 - A better UI for finetuning maneuver nodes
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/43901 - Docking UI. Once you start doing docking for space stations or orbital assembly, you'll want this

Cool stuff
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/119686 - Temperature gague to tell you if you're about to blow up
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/67246 - Gives yoru kerbals medals and achiements
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/60936 - Allows you to shuffle resources around. ALso (more importantly) allows you to rename kerbals!
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/117471 - Super-cool working multi-function displays for IVA
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/68089 - Scriptable autopilot. You can do some pretty elaborate stuff with this
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/16925 - Pretty lights for your ships

Graphixwhoring
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/101496 - Fancy new collision effects :D
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/98943 - Creates little dots (and optionally labels them) that show really distant objects, including your own ships
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/55905 - Configurable admosphere, clouds, lights on night side of kerbin. Needed for other upgrade packs such as Astronomer's
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/115408 - Alternative to Environmental Visual Enhancements (no clouds though). Adds atmospheric scattering to make flying at planets look prettier.
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/65754 - New particle effects for engines
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/96497 - Makes planets reflect light back onto vessels that orbit it. Subtle, but very nice
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/107471 - Allows you to replace in-game textures (check textuer packs in thread). Custom skyboxes are nice. Needed for things like Renaissance Compilation

More difficulty
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/83305 - Signal bouncer. Build your own satellite network or lose control of your unmanned probes! :D
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/106580 - Extra contracts for Remotetech
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/40667 - Life support
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/64972 - Cooler-looking modules for life support (also supports dmagic orbital science)

More stuff to do
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/80369 - Altimetry/biome scanner. Make your own mapping satellites. Integrates with rasterpropmonitor
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/64972 - New types of science experiments
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/79588 - Build colonies on other planets. Supports TAC life support
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/92514 [NOT UPDATED FOR 1.0 YET] Amazing mod that lets kerbals pick up and attach things to each other. Assemble stuff on ground. Drag fuel pipes between rockets without docking etc.
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/113111 - Inventory panel. Similar to (and compatible with, once upgraded) KAS
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/116064 - Adds controllable joints, rotators and the like for building your own mechs. (Also useful for making payloads that fold up to fit inside a fairing)

 

[Burning Bridges]

I wish I could run even 1/4 of that without memory. Currently I am glad I got the outer planets, clouds, telescope and distant objects working as well as Scansat.

I tried some others from the list and had problems getting them work. Another problem with too many mods is that launching the game takes 5 minutes, so there is a limit to how much I can experiment.

But I'll get the Kerbal Alarm clock and hope that it works for the new planets! If not, we simply do what we did in the past, that is go without a launch window!

 

[Cassidy]

Is the following mod finally working all right in the latest release version?

 

[Burning Bridges]

I could finally make the pre release of Real Solar System 10 work. Running the mod itself was no problem, but scaling up the default parts (without a shitton of other mods) required some peristence in the forum.

Anyway, now that it's working, this is so interesting that I might switch over completely to RSS. I never liked the universe of KSP anyway. The version for KSP 1.0.2 is not official released yet, but the pre release seems to work fine.

Here is the first image of the real Moon I took from Earth orbit. It uses the same telescope as before.

The great thing with this is that everything begins from scratch, and (since the mod scales up the world realisitcally), everything has to be earned much harder. Even discovering the Moon will be interesting again!

This is one huge step closer towards the solar system simulator I always wanted.

 

[potatojohn]

You could just play Orbiter

 

[Burning Bridges]

You could just play Orbiter

Haha, no. Only if you have unlimited time and intelligence.

I tried to follow the various renderers, Orulex 3D terrain for several years, downloaded dozens of gigabyte of data and all that madness, and finally gave up. I am not saying that Orbiter isn't amazing in it's own right, but 3D terrain is still far off, and it's not much of a game right now. Worst of all, you will spend years of your life finding, waiting for and installing mods. One of the strengths of KSP is that you can design your own missions and spacecraft with unprecedented freedom, not just fly the stuff that someone made for you, and that it's possible to learn it in finite time, for a normal mortal.

 

[potatojohn]

Orbiter does have 3D terrain now

You're right though KSP has a lot more gameplay and fun.

 

[Burning Bridges]

I don't really need a space sim with 3d terrain on Earth, because that's what flight sims are for. Does it have 3d terrain on Moon and Mars though? I really wouldn't mind looking at it, if you have a link. But if everything gets lost in dependencies and unfinished pieces, I'll stop.

 

[potatojohn]

It does heave the moon and mars yeah

http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/betainstall.html
http://mirror.orbiter-radio.co.uk/orbiter/assets/orbiter_texturepacks.html