Kerbal Space Program, Revisited.

[Enigma]

Questions, can you EVA while the ship is still flying in space? Can your Kerbals lose grip on the craft and tumble into space? Do they have limited oxygen in their suits or is it an infinite supply?

[Imperial528]

Yes, yes, no, and yes.

Kerbal EVA packs run out of fuel though, although boarding a module will replenish it entirely.

They can hold on pretty tight, except for when spinning. I've even landed with one of the little guys hanging on to the capsule from space all the way down to the ground. But you have to keep watch on them, they slowly will slide down the ladder and fall off. I don't know if this will happen in space when orbiting, but I never tried. Especially since you can't time warp when there are Kerbals on a ladder.

[Enigma]

I'd love to see the Kerbals holding on to the craft for dear life as you try to reenter Kerbal's atmosphere. Crispy. But I don't think they gone far enough into the game's development for that to happen.

[TimothyC]

I'd love to see the Kerbals holding on to the craft for dear life as you try to reenter Kerbal's atmosphere. Crispy. But I don't think they gone far enough into the game's development for that to happen.

Entry EVAs get you ripped from the ladder or hand holds (I just tested it for some reason).

[Enigma]

I'd love to see the Kerbals holding on to the craft for dear life as you try to reenter Kerbal's atmosphere. Crispy. But I don't think they gone far enough into the game's development for that to happen.

Entry EVAs get you ripped from the ladder or hand holds (I just tested it for some reason).

But do they burn up upon reentry?

[PeZook]

No, but they do go SPLAT upon hitting the ground!

[TimothyC]

One other note is that in 0.16, there is a fuel consumption bug where engines not at 100% only use the square of the throttle setting not the throttle setting. This means that some people have gotten to the mun and back with a half a tank and a single aerospike.

[xthetenth]

So the consumption value is based on the square of the throttle while the performance scales linearly? Nice, I might be able to get a decent range out of aerospike planes now.

[Vanas]

I figured that the previous ship name, the 'Spacehammer' was far too optimistic. As such, my latest one was dubbed the Statistically Unlikely.



Against my best logic, I launched it. Somehow, it utterly failed to detonate at any point. Desford even managed to circularise it's orbit to the best I've done so far. Seeing I still had plenty of fuel left, I decided to send Desford one step further.





Suck it, Mun. Of course, it wasn't anywhere near the Mun by the time it arrived, so no pictures there unless you like seeing a ship drifting in empty space.

Dropping the aerospike stage, the penultimate stage was kicked into life to smack the aphkerbion back to something sensible.



With that almost out, I figured that as the Munshot was a bust (but feasable), it would be worth giving the systems a try out.





Seeing as how Desford was now a Kerbali hero, I thought it unwise to detach him from the spaceframe and ordered him to kick the engine for a deorbit burn. The ideal was for a beach landing.





Unfortunately,Desford forgot to account for the atmosphere.



Ever optimistic, Desford dropped the landing gear anyway.


Hmm.




Well, Desford, you know what this means?





Damn straight.


So, what have we learned? Firstly, how to realistically get to the Mun. Secondly: That I really need to work out a good lander. This one, while it could work, really needs an extendable ladder and more fuel to get it back off of the Mun. Thirdly: Kerbals can swim.

All things considered, the first flight of the Statistically Unlikely was a profoundly sucessful experiment. Which was indeed statistically unlikely.

[TimothyC]

Anyone who had gotten to the Mün, take a gander near 2º 28' 27" N 81º 31' 49" E (that's a bit East of where you want to be, but I don't like moonwaking more than a few kilometers from the lander).

[Sephirius]

One other note is that in 0.16, there is a fuel consumption bug where engines not at 100% only use the square of the throttle setting not the throttle setting. This means that some people have gotten to the mun and back with a half a tank and a single aerospike.

Neat.

I must try this when I get home.

[Andras]

Vanas, if you are having trouble getting an intersecting orbit to the Mun, get into your Kerbin orbit and wait for the Mun to rise over the horizon. As soon as Mun crests throttle up for your TMI burn, and watch the map to cut the throttle when you have an intersecting trajectory. Many times I'd have speared the Mun without a hasty MOI burn.

[Dave]

I'd love to see the Kerbals holding on to the craft for dear life as you try to reenter Kerbal's atmosphere. Crispy. But I don't think they gone far enough into the game's development for that to happen.

Entry EVAs get you ripped from the ladder or hand holds (I just tested it for some reason).

Actually I was able to do it if you use a long (deployable) ladder and actively maintain the kerbal's position on the ladder. Haven't tried a ring yet but I have been able to do a MOOSE equivalent. (-ish, since there's no re-entry heat protection.)

EDIT: Better link.

[weemadando]

I saw some screens on Twitter the other day (via @dirtytea) of a satellite doing radar terrain mapping of Mun. Here's the earliest article on it I could see. Crazy, crazy stuff. http://hackaday.com/2012/05/14/mapping- ... game-moon/

[phongn]

Asparagus stalk staging!. The guys on SA are reporting nice gains in payload with this scheme.

[xthetenth]

How exactly does that work? Is it firing all engines off the S4 fuel tanks then dropping the S4 engine/tanks combo and moving on to all the remainder fed from S3 tanks and on down the line like that?

[phongn]

How exactly does that work? Is it firing all engines off the S4 fuel tanks then dropping the S4 engine/tanks combo and moving on to all the remainder fed from S3 tanks and on down the line like that?

Pretty much. This scheme sheds mass more frequently than the other conventional staging techniques.

[Dave]

How exactly does that work? Is it firing all engines off the S4 fuel tanks then dropping the S4 engine/tanks combo and moving on to all the remainder fed from S3 tanks and on down the line like that?

Pretty much. This scheme sheds mass more frequently than the other conventional staging techniques.

Yeah, I was using this model as the lifter for my moon lander designs in I think 0.14 or 0.15. As a rough approximate, "asparagus stalk" (never heard it called that) staging gave me an extra 2 or 3 tanks of fuel or so into LEO vs the simple crossfeed.

Downsides were (1) staging like every 15 seconds and (2) it was kind of a pain to set up in the staging window, because the automatic staging algorithm expects no crossfeed and you have to manually separate all the engines and decouplers,and if you're a stickler like me you want to separate all the tanks too.

On a slightly off-topic the Falcon 9 Heavy is claimed to be the first heavy launcher to use crossfeeding, so maybe we'll see more of this in the future...

[TimothyC]

Asparagus stalk staging!. The guys on SA are reporting nice gains in payload with this scheme.

I've had issues with balancing the outer stages when I do that, but yes, it does improve payload quite a bit. It's been one of the major elements in a lot of designs for a while now.

[Andras]

0.17 was released today, the website is being hammered,

[TimothyC]

I've tried to load the forums, and I didn't get through. I may wait for the MechJeb update to move to 0.17, if only because I stink at calcing transfer orbits.

[eion]

they really need to torrent these updates. takes me weeks to actually get the update.

[TimothyC]

A bittersweet moment of Jeb paying his respects to his hero:


And I've checked - the monument has no collider model.

[PeZook]

...while Kerbalistani scientists have heart attacks and/or grant parties because they just discovered an alien monument on the Mun!

[Dave]

That's nothing, I've seen pictures/video of other easter-eggs even more indicative of alien activity on Mars Duna.
Spoiler

image of face on Duna

Spoiler

link to discussion thread on repeating radio signal from small pyramid on Duna