Kerbal Space Program, Revisited.

[Decue]

PeZook, that image got me an idea;



The Escape Vehicle 2000: From one certain death to another!

[PeZook]

I am currently ruminting on finally achieving a manned EVE return mission. Last attempts have all broken at the fact that you need a ginormous rocket to get even a one-Kerbal pod to orbit.

[Serafina]

Have you tried assembling a rocket in Eve orbit via docking, then land it via plenty of parachutes and use that for return?
Should be easier than building a rocket that has enough fuel to get to Eve, and then enough to get back all in one go.

[PeZook]

Of course I separated the rockets into distinct parts. The problem is that you need some 9k delta-v to power through the atmosphere and get to orbit, and that's a pretty beefy rocket you have to land in one piece however you deliver it. I even cheated by using buyoancy to get me to 10km and had a rocket with 5k delta-v...no joy

[Serafina]

Shouldn't solid fuel boosters work very well in Eves atmosphere?
Dunno, only landed on Eve once so far, not even with a manned mission, much less return (and yes, manned missions come before return mission. It's the Kerbal Way!)

Right now i am busy painting the Mun with flags. Already completed a nice Pentagram - and each site has a rover, who are supposed to drag a thin conductive wire to the next flagpole and connect it to complete the circuit...
Why? SCIENCE of course!

[TimothyC]

Shouldn't solid fuel boosters work very well in Eves atmosphere?

Actually, they are worse because you can't reduce the throttle to avoid excess thrust early on that gets turned into drag. It's a worse problem than on Kerbin because the atmosphere is so much thicker.

[Serafina]

I think i discovered the best trick to building rockets yet:

Attach Cubic Octagonal struts below large fuel tanks (such as the orange jumbo one).
Engines can be placed directly under those without any notable loss of stability and no need for a seperate fuel feed.
That means that you can place up to five (one in the middle, four at the corners) engines instead of one large engine.

Every test so far that i've made produced MUCH better results with this method, ususally getting 90% more out of the fuel in that tank! AND it allows placing engines that you otherwise couldn't, notably atomic rocket engines!

The only disadvantage is that, sometimes, if you use a decoupler under those engine clusters, some of them fall off. I've yet to figure out why, it may be related to the engine covering thats blown off in such cases.

[Marko Dash]

engine clustering is normally only good for the first stage due to the problems with ataching anything below them. if you want to use it for an upper stage, leave the center point free, then put a girder or I-beam there and put the decoupler on the bottom of that. strut heavily.

i've been using the radial atachment points rather then the cubics, they're flat and their 1m diameter gives you a better idea of clearence.
p.s. it is possible to do 6x1 as well but doesnt look as good due to the engines overhanging the sides of the tank

[PeZook]

engine clustering is normally only good for the first stage due to the problems with ataching anything below them. if you want to use it for an upper stage, leave the center point free, then put a girder or I-beam there and put the decoupler on the bottom of that. strut heavily.

High TWR is mostly useful in the first stage, anyways. Higher thrust = higher acceleration = you move past the densest parts of the atmosphere quicker, thus you save fuel.

I usually don't bother with fiddly bits like carefully positioning engines around, my rockets are rather conservative in design

[GuppyShark]

Mental note: The Mun does actually have gravity.

Why is this relevant? The first two Kerbals I landed on the Mun died while jetpacking across the surface because I wasn't applying enough upwards thrust and they came down too fast.

[Marko Dash]

when jetpacking across the Mun it's not the fall that kills you, it's all that horizontal speed you've picked up without realizing it till your Kerman is a green smear.

[Serafina]

With radially mounted landing engines and large landing struts its relatively easy to mount a rover on your Mun lander.
Simply take a rover mate (or similar surface), mount an external seat on it, add four wheels of your chosing and four static solar panels or radioisotope generators (or equivalents). Connect the whole thing via a centrally mounted i-beam and a stack seperator to the underside of your lander, and make sure the landing struts work in such a way that the rover doesnt have to fall far.
Voila, you can now cruise around the Mun with about 20 km/h!

[Zaune]

You might also try delivering your rover separately. There's either the Mars Curiosity approach of attaching it by decoupler to a sort of latticework cradle fitted with radial engines, or a couple of mods that add cargo bays.

[GuppyShark]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I ended up just sticking a rover to the nose of a rocket and launching that at the Mun. I gave it a rocket for a body so it could do its own landing descent, it just uses RCS to flip over so that it lands on its wheels.

Unfortunately using a rocket fuel tank as your chassis has some other, explosive consequences, so I am now on my second rover. But I did manage to get to one of the arches.

[PeZook]

My last rover had a landing stage - a proper lander that it sat on top of. After touchdown, it separated and used its own teeny tiny rockets to leap up and hop to the side.

[Serafina]

And of course, my current project for a Duna Base basically consists of a bunch of really big rovers that can dock together when on the ground. Spoiler

The main advantage is that it looks cool, but it also means that you don't have to worry about precision landings - if you're a bit off, you can just drive there!
Oh, and as for testing whether any two colony modules can dock - just do that on Kerbal if you want to avoid the frustration of flying aall the way to Duna and then find out that you placed the docking clamps at different heights.

[PeZook]

Cool? It looks bloody awesome!

[Serafina]

Cool? It looks bloody awesome!

Heh, thanks
I'm currently working on designing different modules that i can link together to form a proper base. The idea is to have habitation modules, hydroponic modules and power plant modules.
Hab modules are what you see above - room for up to 7 Kerbals. Power modules will be higher and use both tons of solar sails and radioisotope generators - specifically, spires of the latter mounting the former. And hydroponic modules out of copulas and storage modules, along with tons of lights, struts and fuel pipes to make it fancier.

Problem is that the first module i landed can only link in a straight line - and so far i haven't really found a good method to design a cross-section that allows better linking. The main issue are the wheels - if they aren't all on the same axis, they break really easily.

A method i might try is to make a really wide module where i can dock three other modules next to each other. Still working on that though.


But if everything works out, you'll have a bunch of those things connected together into one giant base on wheels, housing at least 20 Kerbals

[PeZook]

Have a hub with docking ports sticking every which way. It would be immobile and serve as the starting point of the base - the roving modules would then connect to it. That way you neatly sidestep the wheel problem

[Serafina]

No that doesn't really work either.
Because the modules i dock sideways will have their wheels on the wrong axis - horizontal to that of the others. Thus they won't work for propulsion (i could deal with that), but worse every time i have tried that so far they break very easily.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Has no one tried doing a skycrane idea like NASA did with Curiosity? That is, having a stage that can drop a rover, then fly off to crash or land for later use?

[PeZook]

Has no one tried doing a skycrane idea like NASA did with Curiosity? That is, having a stage that can drop a rover, then fly off to crash or land for later use?

There's even a default skycrane ship that comes with the game!

[Admiral Valdemar]

Is there? I never really checked all the default types, other than Kerbal X. I'm still playing about more with spaceplanes at the moment.

[Serafina]

It's pretty easy.
Just add a lander stage atop whatever payload you want to drop with a means to detach it (the double-side decouplers are best for this). Use some struts for stability, and then make a normal landing - just make sure you have fuel left when you're almost on the ground, detach and drop a few meters.

Using parachutes on your payload (and triggering them while high up) gives you way more room for error.
Using small engines is generally always a good idea for landers that aren't supposed to take off again.
Using a small number of Seperatron solid engines to trigger the moment to detach can make sure that even a heavier lander gets far away without much liquid fuel remaining


Mind you, other than being cool and an achievement, sky cranes serve no purpose because after all, you don't need to worry about throwing up dust in this game. Still, using the stock skycrane is fun

[Admiral Valdemar]

Wasn't Curiosity's used down to it being just too damn heavy to drop with parachutes and get a decent landing? It would be cool if they added dust effects for landings, though. Scorch marks, dust, shockwaves and Max Q effects would all add to the eye candy.