Shep is going to love this little rocket game

[RRoan]

I just made a rocket that achieves a speed of 7,006 m/s at final stage burnout at an altitude of 1140 km.

And no, I have no part mods installed.

[Zixinus]

Getting to 100000m is relatively easy. Just use two fuel tanks and a liquid engine.

Other than that, I sort of wish we could make more goals.

Oh, and more accurate monitors for the Kerman. Heart-rate and stuff like that would be fun.

[PeZook]

Yeah, that's why I don't bother with all this "LOL I gots to a bazillion miles!" crap. I just make amusing contraptions that fail in hilarious ways.

Like today, I put a large orange tank and four engines ON TOP of the command module. That was fun.

Iwill probably get bored pretty soon, though, at whcih point it's off to other games until this one matures a bit more

[xthetenth]

You know you've done something special when you make a design that should stay together, but the engines at the top tear it away from the bottom before you can get all your boosters going. Four of those sunday punch SRBs consistently tear the top off my rocket, but before the thrust from twenty-four of them kept snapping it off.

[Zixinus]

By the way, is it actually possible to reach a stable orbit? Or can you only fall and nearly avoid kill your Kerman astronauts in spectacular fashion?

[doom3607]

In theory it's probably possible. Every attempt I've ever made has turned pretty quickly into a fairly good kinetic weapon, though.

[xthetenth]

By the way, is it actually possible to reach a stable orbit? Or can you only fall and nearly avoid kill your Kerman astronauts in spectacular fashion?

Yes you can, I believe I've done it (didn't stay up long enough to be sure though). Somebody made a real nice list of altitudes and their escape and orbit velocities that I'll paste when I'm back from work.

[Crossroads Inc.]

OK has anyone else actually left orbit into "SPACE" and then come back?
Because it seems no matter what I try, I can't get out of the gravity well without using up all my stages.
You would think having a rocket that can easily get into SPACE, just adding one more stage that WON'T fire until after you are out, wouldn't be that hard.

[loomer]

I achieved a stable, somewhat elliptical orbit with enough fuel left for a deorbit the other day, so it's definitely possible. Just a little tricky when you've got to do all the maths in your head (or just wing that shit and fly by what looks right).

You'll need to push it to at least 3k/s if you're less than 100kM out, in my experience. That should free you from the overpowering pull of gravity. Two SRBs should do it. I don't know if you'll be able to get back into orbit with the primitive instruments available to us, though.

[xthetenth]

I come bearing awesome.

Vcirc (orbital velocity) and Vesc for 50 km intervals.

https://gist.github.com/1073201

[loomer]

Bah! Using actual tools is a crutch. Real men fly by the skin of their pants and some quickly scribbled notes on an envelope!

[weemadando]

Oh man. So many structural failures, spectacular.

Simply goddamn spectacular launch pad explosions as the SRB inertia busters blast their segment of the rocket upward through the other immobile sections, detonating their fuel tanks.

[weemadando]

I just about played Lander with a horrible accident then. Second stage separation didn't complete and the third stage detonated it a little way from the rocket as a result. I ditched the third stage in an attempt to save the brave Kerbals. Then in a horror moment, prior to fourth (and final stage) ignition, in amidst the tumbling, flaming mess a piece of the third stage flew past and hit the capsule at a glance.

At just the right glance to destroy the parachute.

DEAR GOD.

Bob was fair old shitting himself at this point.

So I didn't ignite the fourth stage and waiting until we were well clear (at about 3km at this point) and then fired it off, trying to hold us at an acceptable velocity, without running out of fuel to counter the fall.

It was all going so well, with me keeping the rocket vertical and the rate of descent survivable until at the last moment (~50m up when I was about to ditch the fourth stage and hope that the remaining fall wouldn't kill them) the rocket started to pitch and I couldn't recover in time. Before I can bail poor Bob, Bill and Jeb out by hitting the final separation, the now runaway rocket has blasted them into a hillside.

RIP Bob, Bill and Jeb. Mission KSV-V will be designated in your honour.

[Marko Dash]

Managed to get a relatively stable orbit a few days ago, cheated a little by using the round tanks. I stayed up until i got bored, was able to keep my first stage all the way up and was in no danger of running out of fuel.




With only short one second bursts needed for orbital corrections i stayed up for 4hrs.



Deorbiting burn



it's about this time i realized i'd left out an important bit


and went in to do a powered soft landing...


which it turns out doesn't work if you land on a slope, sucks after such a long flight i'd have liked to actually land.
...Note to self: do not let jeb be the one to load the parachute...

anyways here is the numbers




PS: could anybody who knows kerball's circumference tell me how many orbits that was?

[xthetenth]

What you need for a rough guess is its radius, so you can figure out the radius of your orbit. Or figure that your measurements of the relevant points on the orbit are going to be wild guesswork and count the orbits. Much simpler.

[Darmalus]

This game is very difficult for me. My desire to get into a stable orbit is almost always overwhelmed by my desire to make Jeb panic. This frequently results in everyone dying.

[xthetenth]

This game is very difficult for me. My desire to get into a stable orbit is almost always overwhelmed by my desire to make Jeb panic. This frequently results in everyone dying.

This game needs achievements or special missions. Make Jeb panic three times and survive. That sort of thing.

[LaCroix]

By the way, is it actually possible to reach a stable orbit? Or can you only fall and nearly avoid kill your Kerman astronauts in spectacular fashion?

Use my instructions above - works like a charm - I left it on overnight and had like 20 orbits, with the orbit (originally varying by 4km) slowly getting more circular, by morning, it was only 2.5 km difference. Had I waited longer, I'd have hit a perfect orbit after a day or so...

I also modded myself a connector I could use on top of the capsule, which was nerfed to 1 seperation thrust and 0.5 damage resistance. I coupled fueltanks or something onto it, and on seperation, it became a sattelite while the docking module disintegrated without damaging anything.

[LaCroix]

I achieved a stable, somewhat elliptical orbit with enough fuel left for a deorbit the other day, so it's definitely possible. Just a little tricky when you've got to do all the maths in your head (or just wing that shit and fly by what looks right).

You'll need to push it to at least 3k/s if you're less than 100kM out, in my experience. That should free you from the overpowering pull of gravity. Two SRBs should do it. I don't know if you'll be able to get back into orbit with the primitive instruments available to us, though.

EEEEEEK - wrong.

You have Vorbit of less than 2300 at that height, and 3k is already very close to Vesc. If you are exeeding 3k for a 100km orbit, you are heading for Spaaaaaaceeeee... For that little planet, there is no orbital velocity above 2.5 km/s. that's why it's so hard - most people are waaaay overshooting.

That's orbital for 53km... (It hung there for about 16 hours before I got bored...)

[GuppyShark]

Anyone else just launch the parachute when they reach space? - its deployment doesn't seem to have a noticeable effect on the craft's performance and the astronauts will automatically unfurl it when you get to around 500m above the surface, so you can be afk for the re-entry.

I wish the re-entry had to be managed, actually, orienting the heat shield should be important.

[Mr. Coffee]

Goddamnit, Goons...

[KhorneFlakes]

Goddamnit, Goons...

The MegaPhallus One?

[GuppyShark]

Fuck yes, I think I've got this one orbital... now I just wait and see.

I can't see the yellow indicator on my guage, and I can see the sunny side of the planet coming up... Ahh crap I think I'm short.

Gonna need a bigger rocket.

[weemadando]

Holy shit. Nothing will faze Jeb.

Stage 1 goes with sympathetic detonations of stages 2 and 3?

Bill and Bob are fucking terrified.

Jeb is grinning like a maniac as the escape rocket motor fires and the parachute deploys and they float back onto the burning wreckage that was the landing pad.


Also:
Uncontrolled tumbling after a SRB coupling failure? GRINNING.
Early stage separation sends SRB through the decoupler behind the capsule? GRINNING.

[LaCroix]

Goddamnit, Goons...

BALLS! Said Lt. Mike Wong...