Matt_W
1763
OK, vessels. This one is capable of landing on the Mun, maybe even returning. You should move the big reaction wheel below the top decoupler.
And this one is capable of a Mun return mission. There’s no heat shield–(heat shields are heavy, and an engine bell often suffices)–so you’ll need to do several rounds of high-atmospheric slow-down on your Mun return. It’s a little tricky, but I brought back science with it successfully. (I’m a pretty accomplished rocket pilot though. No Scott Manley, and I’m not great at planes or at building ships, but there’s not much I can’t do/haven’t done with a rocket.)
And yes, I’ve got KER and Mechjeb installed. I haven’t used MechJeb yet on this career (though I’ve been tempted to pull out Smart A.S.S.), but I do use KER constantly.
Why do you use those curved fins on the center tanks instead of the same fins as you have on the outer ones.
Which leads me to a question I have about fin design in general. I often see a rocket in middle with a pair of SRB’s on the side and people only put a single fin pointing out of each SRB. How do they control it with fins not on all 4 sides?
Is that system modifiable to take 4 people and land them on the moon and bring them back for those tourist trips you think?
Matt_W
1765
The first rocket:
The engines on the outer SRBs boosters are Reliants. They have no swivel capability. The central engine is a Swivel and does. Reliants have more thrust and better atmospheric efficiency, which is why I used them. That first rocket, I didn’t have fuel ducts unlocked, so you can see on the staging that I was only burning the Reliants during the first stage, so no engine swivel capability. The outer fins are AV-R8 winglets, which can deflect up to 15°. They’re to compensate for the lack of swivel. The 4 fins on the inner rocket are AV-T1’s, which are fixed and don’t deflect, but weigh about 1/3 of what the AV-R8’s do. The Swivel engine and the reaction wheels suffice to provide control authority for that stage.
The second rocket:
I unlocked fuel ducts for that rocket, so I’m actually running all 3 engines in the first stage. Given that, I probably didn’t need the AV-R8’s on the outer boosters, but this one was just a modified version of the first rocket and I forgot to remove them.
Not as shown. There’s no crew or passenger capability on those rockets, and command capsules and passenger accommodations are heavy and require bigger engines. But scaling that whole design up is the general idea.
This is where I get into terrible, terrible trouble. Scaling up. I end up with expensive monstrosities that are an embarrassment.
This leads me to yet another question. Does the game actually take into consideration flight dynamics of cones? I haven’t been aero-proofing anything because I didn’t think the game cared so I was going for weight savings. But if there is an actual benefit to adding aero caps to boosters, and the flat tops of certain designs I have - I will totally do that.
(also I’m always so excited to see the post count boosted in this thread - tis like Christmas!)
Matt_W
1767
Yeah, the game models airflow against all of the surfaces on the rocket and will calculate lift and drag based on the angle of attack. Nose cones, fairing, and other parts meant to reduce that angle are definitely effective at increasing the efficiency of your ascents.
Whoa look at this!!!
Also did any of you catch this amazing contraption? All stock thanks to the BG DLC.
How does one estimate the amount of electric charge and batteries they need for any given probe or satellite? I’ve just been throwing on gobs of batteries and solar panels weighting my craft down because I don’t know when to stop. It would be nice to be able to calculate how much properly.
Pod
1770
Have you tried experimentation? I.e. make a temporary probe, stick it in the launch pad, ‘launch’ then sit there with time acceleration on to see how long it lasts?
meeper
1771
That describes so much of the Kerbal experience. That and going “oh shit, I guess I didn’t have enough fuel on that one!”
Don’t forget you can hibernate probe cores while you’re not using them. That way they drain less power.
One of my focuses this playthrough has been efficiency—I haven’t even bothered with making stages recoverable with Stage Recovery yet, because that usually leads to overbuilding rockets and saying, “I won’t run out of money; recovery will save me!” My Munar lander doesn’t have solar panels, it just has sufficient battery to last through the whole mission. (That’s 250, which is enough for SAS control from Munar orbit to the surface and back, as well as maneuvering for the intercept, with a good bit to spare; the command module has its own batteries and an engine with an alternator.)
So I’ve got a couple questions.
The most important one is how do you ensure that you have Kerbel net coverage everywhere on Kerbin.
I have lost many probes when I lose radio coverage either right after take off before the Apogee burn , or during re-entry when I’m trying to keep manually keep rocket on retograde and I loss coverage and lose control.
I’ve deployed 10 comm sat with a high gain antenna or two. I’d like to say there is pattern but not really, most are between 2 and 5 million KM, but I have some that are nearing 10 million, and one I just burned off all the fuel and the apogee ended up at Minimus 48 million. I also add a high gain antenna to any satellite mission. I guess I need a Geostationary satellite but I have no idea where to put them or how many I’d need to cover Kerbin.
The second question is what do people do for upper stage rockets in career mode, before you can unlock Poodles. The Terrier LV45 is a great little rocket but just doesn’t have enough thrust carry anything more than MK1 comand module and T800 fuel tank and sometimes I need more than that in a upper stage.
I like super-high-altitude polar orbits, myself. Launch one north with an apogee at about 40 million meters. When it gets to apogee, launch one south with the same orbital parameters. They spend a super-long time hanging out near apogee, and when they’re down near perigee, the other one is out at apogee. The high altitude means that they can reach to the back side of moons without issue. Doesn’t really work with fewer than four of the RA-2 antennas, though.
That said, in 1.7 (at least), there seem to be Deep Space Network ground stations all over Kerbin, so you shouldn’t lose signal near the planet.
A single HG-5-to-HG-5 connection won’t work even as far as Kerbin to the Mun. In that case, you’d probably want to launch a relay out to the Mun, since DSN->Mun->lander would work with a pair of HG-5s.
Keostationary orbit is 2,863,334 meters.
The Terrier is usually sufficient for me, with a 2.5-stage SRB+liquid core rocket. Note that the Terrier doesn’t generate power, so you’ll want some form of electrical storage or generation for those upper stages.
This is really good to know. How did you know you need a pair of HG-5’s?
Oh that’s a really good idea, I guess Quality rather than quantity probably for safety do 2 on equatorial orbits also. I’m ways from getting my next antenna tech but I’ll try that. In the meantime, I’ll try with at 4 HG 5 at 12 million.
Yes there are more ground stations, but below about 80K (for rescue mission, re-entries, and launches), there are dead zone, I had 15-20% on a equatorial orbit at 72-75K, and that with my haphazard network of relay stations.
Kolbex
1778
The antenna calculator…spreadsheet.
Hell yes.
Matt_W
1779
If you’re generating a plasma around your vessel, it will block radio contact. You can disable this setting in the difficulty options.
Fozzle
1780
One of my favorite ways to start my com array I learned from Scott Manley. I shoot one rocket with 3 satellites on it up in to an elliptic Orbit whos Apix is at the 2,863,334, and the entire length of the orbit is 4 hours. Then during each pass of the Ap, I release one of the satellites and circularize that satellites orbit. After you have done all 3 you have a perfect 3 satellite ring at Keo orbit that covers pretty much any com coverage you need early game.
The secret sauce is that the actual Keo orbit is 6 hours long. So by releasing each satellite every 4 hours, you end up with all of them being exactly 2 hours apart, forming that nice triangle…
With all the base stations the game has now, do you need 3 satellites around Kerbin? Or is that so they can send signals further away than ground stations? Also, do you do that plan around all bodies you’re researching? Like the Mun, Minmax, Duna, the Sun etc?
Matt_W
1782
If you have a vessel in low orbit, particularly over the oceans, there are still a few spots where the DSN doesn’t reach. So a satellite network can help with that.
