Better Than Starting Manned (Flower's WIP KSP mod )

[jkievlan]

Am I the only one that really hates leaving junk orbiting all over the place? If I can't land it or return it, I do my best to save enough fuel to crash it :) Probably just my weird OCD.

[FlowerChild]

So thanks FlowerChild for using your gift to make us these gifts!

Thanks for the thanks man, and glad you're enjoying it :)

Am I the only one that really hates leaving junk orbiting all over the place? If I can't land it or return it, I do my best to save enough fuel to crash it :) Probably just my weird OCD.

This already came up a couple of pages ago.

[TheGatesofLogic]

Funny thing, i started my most recent save with no intention of doing a consistent naming scheme, however i was feeling funny on my fourth-fifth (maybe sixth?) launch and named it Artemis, as a jab at the IRL Apollo program. After it miraculously reached a stable orbit about 50 meters above atmosphere at the Perikerb, i decided to honor the flight by naming my subsequent ships the same with sequential Roman numerals after it. The funny part is that i just built Artemis XI (11) and lo and behold, it's my first manned mission to land on Mun :). So EXCITED!

With regards to the exploits i stated before, i am now thoroughly avoiding them with all my effort :)

[Sarudak]

So first off I want to say AWESOME! This has been an amazingly fun experience. I've managed landing probes on mun and minimus (both without landing struts :P) And have researched everything in T5 and have a couple techs in T6. I had a couple questions though. You said you could get tech from spaceplanes but how do you actually do that? Also I got the tech for EVA suits and I figured there would be some science associated with it but I went EVA in orbit and there didn't seem to be anything I could do. Am I missing something?

Thank you very much for all the work you've put into this it's been an awesome experience!

[TheGatesofLogic]

EVA Reports? did you right click on your kerbal buddy?

[FlowerChild]

So first off I want to say AWESOME! This has been an amazingly fun experience. I've managed landing probes on mun and minimus (both without landing struts :P) And have researched everything in T5 and have a couple techs in T6. I had a couple questions though. You said you could get tech from spaceplanes but how do you actually do that? Also I got the tech for EVA suits and I figured there would be some science associated with it but I went EVA in orbit and there didn't seem to be anything I could do. Am I missing something?

Thank you very much for all the work you've put into this it's been an awesome experience!

Thanks man :)

As mentioned in the release notes (apparently I need to find someone's forehead to staple those to ;) ), EVA experiments are now restricted to the surface of celestial bodies with an increased science value because constantly hoping out of a perfectly good ship in every zone you pass through was getting rather silly (and annoying) :)

So yeah, land your dudes on the Mun or Minmus, take a walk on the surface, and you'll get a nice big science reward for it.

Science from space planes is only available at tech 7 (if I remember right) once you get the sensor array nosecone thingy. Before then, planes are a "just for fun" thing aside from the very early capsule missions in T3 and T4.

[Stormweaver]

Yeah, EVAs now give a ton of science. I've just got done with a manned landing on minmus (very, very glad not to have to mess around with landercans for that one) and walked away with enough science for another T8(?) purchase. Or whatever tier the 300 cost ones are anyways.

On that note; I'm technically in a position where I could buy the node with the radioisotropic power-generator-thingy, having it's prerequisites and little motivation to buy any more nodes at the current level. 54 charge/min seems ridiculous though. Is it currently balanced, or should I hold off and keep using the solar panels?

[FlowerChild]

On that note; I'm technically in a position where I could buy the node with the radioisotropic power-generator-thingy, having it's prerequisites and little motivation to buy any more nodes at the current level. 54 charge/min seems ridiculous though. Is it currently balanced, or should I hold off and keep using the solar panels?

If I want to leave stock parts "balanced" as they are in vanilla, I'm running out of wiggle room man :P

Tech 8 is one before the end. Without the increased science values for later tiers that I mentioned above or the ability to modify the tech tree much more in other ways, there's not much more I can do there.

Having said that though, tech 8 in the version you have is far far from balanced. It just has a few stock parts in there that I assigned as I knew whereabouts I wanted them, and even then, I've moved several around since. I'd really recommend sticking to tech 7 before the next update. So yeah, I'd say hold off on that.

[userzero]

I finally had a chance to check this out. I started by completely removing KSP and reinstalling. Then installed deadly reentry, followed by BTSM. I've started the game 3 times but every time after my initial launch crashes the game locks up. I've tried reverting the launch as suggested but whatever I do i end up back at the initial overview of the center and am unable to click anything. Any suggestions?

[Stormweaver]

I finally had a chance to check this out. I started by completely removing KSP and reinstalling. Then installed deadly reentry, followed by BTSM. I've started the game 3 times but every time after my initial launch crashes the game locks up. I've tried reverting the launch as suggested but whatever I do i end up back at the initial overview of the center and am unable to click anything. Any suggestions?

Close the game (via task manager or w/e), start it up again, and just continue from your save (as opposed to starting from scratch). Everything will be how it was left, but you'll have the UI back and it shouldn't happen again.

[Stormweaver]

Whooooo! Made it.

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Well, kind off. I did gather a rather large amount of atmospheric science on the way down at least.

Eve is hard with DRE. Rather good for aerobraking since you can just sit on the edge of the amosphere and slowly bleed off speed, but once you hit the thicker areas? Damn. I made a judgement call on the way down, and used my poodle engine as an improvised heatshield on the way down, and after it, it's fuel tank, and the near empty rockomax-sized RCS tank all died firey deaths, my large heatshield was ablated down very, very quickly and I almost lost the whole thing for a moment.

Ironically, it was the landing legs that ruined the whole thing. After the parachutes had fully deployed, I had a speed of ~4m/s - more than within the safety margin of the RCS tanks. But nope, used landing legs, and tipped over. I was almost out of power anyway, but...damn.

[E.B. Farnham]

Just got a chance to play the new build and after a quick manned mission to Minmus I bought the solar panels.

Problem is I can't get them to orbit as they keep exploding under G load. I've had them explode under 2.2 g's of acceleration which can't be right. Just wondering if anyone else is having that problem or if it's down to my install in some fashion?

[Stormweaver]

Just got a chance to play the new build and after a quick manned mission to Minmus I bought the solar panels.

Problem is I can't get them to orbit as they keep exploding under G load. I've had them explode under 2.2 g's of acceleration which can't be right. Just wondering if anyone else is having that problem or if it's down to my install in some fashion?

No, that sounds about right. They're really, really fragile.

[E.B. Farnham]

No, that sounds about right. They're really, really fragile.

I've gotten them to explode now at 1.5 g's, highest I've managed to load them is 2.9 g's. So how do you get them into orbit?

This is the best I've managed so far.

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[FlowerChild]

Whoa dude. That's way more fragile than how it behaves for me. I've basically set the values so that if your G-meter remains in the green you're fine, and there's a fair bit of wiggle room above that before you hear the stress sounds.

Any other mods that might be messing with it? Do you have the new version of DR? Did you install BTSM over top of it?

What's happening in that vid doesn't match my own experiences with it at all. I've done at least a dozen launches with those solar panels, and the only time I tend to potentially get into trouble is around the time I leave the atmosphere if I don't decrease throttle to compensate for loss of drag.

[E.B. Farnham]

Yeah there's definitely something hinky going on. I knew there was no way they'd be that fragile. No substance on earth is that fragile. I've tested on a clean install with no other mods other then deadly reentry and BTSM. Still getting that weirdness. They seem to be able to take far greater deceleration forces than acceleration. I've also had them accelerating fine laterally just not vertically.

I've been noticing phantom torque effects recently as well. I'm just at a loss as to whats causing it. At first I thought it was some kind of resonance effect caused by rocket wobble but this confirms that's there's something up and if it's happening on a clean install I'm not sure what it could be. This is likely gonna be a tough one to figure out.

[dawnraider]

So I finally got a rocket to the mun... then ran out of fuel and overshot (though i still got high orbit science) and my probe it's now in a stable orbit around the sun (which i also got a bit of high orbit science from) with its periapsis slightly within Kerbin's orbit, and its apoapsis almost reaching Duna.

I also managed to return a Kerbal from high orbit. Somehow I had enough fuel during retrograde burn to actually have my final stage survive reentry with my capsule, and only 2 ablative shielding used, since i was only going about 750 m/s through the atmosphere.

Overall I am definitely having a lot of fun with this. I am only just touching into tech 5 (heavy rocketry and mk1 capsule tech), but so far it had been very enjoyable figuring things out. So thank you for all your hard work on this.

[FlowerChild]

Yeah there's definitely something hinky going on.

I just did a quick test with something other than my Saturn-series launch vehicles to make sure it wasn't a peculiar aspect of those rockets that was keeping my panels safe. I quickly rigged up an older rocket with panels, and wound up with this:

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I operated at full throttle, and was slightly above desirable velocity at each altitude (100 at 2Km, 150 at 4Km, etc) so I was definitely accelerating at a much greater rate than you were in that vid, and my G meter was pushing the top of the green area the whole time. I only started experiencing the stress sounds at the very top of the atmosphere (still firing the 5 engines on the bottom stage) and a single quick throttle reduction got rid of that.

So yeah, doesn't seem to match up with your experiences at all :\

For comparison, this is what I've been launching them on as of late with no issues:

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Again, full throttle (bit less after launch due to heat, not G's) until upper atmosphere is fine.

I really put that in more as a hazard for people that may still be over-accelerating their rockets in atmosphere, and as a slight hazard for everyone else, rather than something that should be a constant danger.

[E.B. Farnham]

I just did a quick test with something other than my Saturn-series launch vehicles to make sure it wasn't a peculiar aspect of those rockets that was keeping my panels safe....

Yeah it's a strange one. I'm just modifying the BTSM part files now so I can test with a brand new save, without having to unlock a decent engine and what not, just to see if it's limited to that one save or not.

[FlowerChild]

Yeah it's a strange one. I'm just modifying the BTSM part files now so I can test with a brand new save, without having to unlock a decent engine and what not, just to see if it's limited to that one save or not.

You should be able to test it in sandbox without issue. Same parts and code are used either way.

I'm going to update to the newest version of DR myself just to make sure it's not actually an issue on my end (Nathan tends to do stealth releases with the same version number). As an aside, make sure you do a redownload on DR as opposed to just a reinstall for the same reason.

If we have someone else here that's running tests at this tech level, I'd be interested in hearing how these things are behaving for you as well so I can confirm how this thing is behaving in the wild, I'd be much obliged.

[E.B. Farnham]

You should be able to test it in sandbox without issue. Same parts and code are used either way.

I'm going to update to the newest version of DR myself just to make sure it's not actually an issue on my end (Nathan tends to do stealth releases with the same version number). As an aside, make sure you do a redownload on DR as opposed to just a reinstall for the same reason.

If we have someone else here that's running tests at this tech level, I'd be interested in hearing how these things are behaving for you as well so I can confirm how this thing is behaving in the wild, I'd be much obliged.

Never mind solved it. As usual with these things it's user error. When I went to update deadly reentry I googled it and selected Deadly Reentry 2.3 as it was the spaceport version, whereas what I needed was Deadly Reentry Continued v4. The 2.3 version is by the original author before Nathan took it over. I just knew it had to be something I was missing. Ah well least it's solved. Sorry about the erroneous report.

[FlowerChild]

Never mind solved it. As usual with these things it's user error. When I went to update deadly reentry I googled it and selected Deadly Reentry 2.3 as it was the spaceport version, whereas what I needed was Deadly Reentry Continued v4. The 2.3 version is by the original author before Nathan took it over. I just knew it had to be something I was missing. Ah well least it's solved. Sorry about the erroneous report.

Ah, cool. When in doubt, redownload :)

I just finished reinstalling DR and retesting my first design above and was about to post that everything worked fine. Glad you figured it out.

That does indicate to me though that you may be in for a very different reentry experience than what you've previously had ;)

Don't forget that you have to reinstall BTSM over top of the new DR or my tweaks to it won't be in effect.

[E.B. Farnham]

Ah, cool. When in doubt, redownload :)

I just finished reinstalling DR and retesting my first design above and was about to post that everything worked fine. Glad you figured it out...

Haha nah I was using the correct version till I went to update it yesterday. That's when I made my error. So bar my Minmus landing it's been the right type of fiery death. Of course I went to look at my Minmus video and I note now that I ended up with still about 800 on the ablative shield. That should have been a clue that something was up there. :)

On the plus side now I don't have to launch my interplanetary probe in two parts and dock them in orbit. That was my plan, build a smooth ride rocket for the probe and a faster one for the probe engine section.

So target is Duna, just going for a low orbit probe for my first go. Then I might try for a rover for the second.

[FlowerChild]

Eve is hard with DRE. Rather good for aerobraking since you can just sit on the edge of the amosphere and slowly bleed off speed, but once you hit the thicker areas? Damn. I made a judgement call on the way down, and used my poodle engine as an improvised heatshield on the way down, and after it, it's fuel tank, and the near empty rockomax-sized RCS tank all died firey deaths, my large heatshield was ablated down very, very quickly and I almost lost the whole thing for a moment.

Back on this one now that the immediate crisis is over, there's a larger heat shield coming at tech level 8 that I'm going to try to balance specifically for Eve landings and stuff like aerobraking in Jool's atmosphere.

So yeah, glad to hear the above was rough, as it's something that I intended to be a bit beyond tech level 7 :)

[Stormweaver]

Back on this one now that the immediate crisis is over, there's a larger heat shield coming at tech level 8 that I'm going to try to balance specifically for Eve landings and stuff like aerobraking in Jool's atmosphere.

So yeah, glad to hear the above was rough, as it's something that I intended to be a bit beyond tech level 7 :)

Ah good. I'm still going to try again - just getting a design together now - since this time I can carry a lot less weight on the landing section with not having to transmit anything but ground-level science. Knowing that a re-entry (or should that just be 'entry'?) is going to be difficult makes you really stop and think about the design. Getting a entry probe set up so that it's got a low center of mass, landing legs attached higher than the center of mass, RCS thrusters as far away from the center of mass as physically possible, parachutes as high as possible, while making sure that even if I start wobbling/tilting I have a decent margin of error for things burning off...It's an exercise in frustration but I feel it's definitely going to pay off when I get there.

Might throw a rock at duna first though, since I have a bit more experience with those solar panels now.