Kerbal Space Program

[Smeghead]

It would most likely have worked if the probe mothership had had enough fuel to get into close orbit to Jool. Sadly the ships is so heavy (even after I made it lighter) so it is unable to get into Kerbin orbit with the rocket boosters alone so I end up having to use the ship's own engines to get into orbit; wasting maybe 20% of the ships total fuel.
I either need a better launcher rocket or I need to refuel the ship once it reached an orbit

[Master Gunner]

Can you post a picture of the mothership on the launch pad? I may have ideas.

[Smeghead]

The mothership is the part above the 3 nuclear engines. The rest of the craft have 6 large solid rockets (To get the damn thing off the ground) and 6 smaller liquid boosters using the "asparagus" system. Usually I get in to about half Kerbin orbit until I have to start the nuclear engines.

[Master Gunner]

For interplanetary burns, you only need one nuclear engine. It will take longer, but is more fuel efficient.

For the launcher stage, try replacing the current liquid boosters with a pair of asparagus staged orange tanks + mainsails.

[Smeghead]

Made a new ship (with only 1 probe) heading for Laythe using only 1 nuclear engines (but with 4 ion engines as backup), and currently the ship is orbiting Laythe, but is out of fuel (except the probe) so the ion engines are the only things bringing the thing closer at the moment.
I ran into a few bugs/problems on the way, for one while halfway to Jool the ship started to spin completely uncontrollably, and wouldn't respond to commands (it had power), and it didn't stop until I increased the game speed. Then when i orbited Jool all my solar panels stopped working and when I looked closer at them; all the blue surfaces on the panels were gone and just grey. Luckily this problem was fixed by just retracting then the deploying the panels again.

[Dutch guy]

The spinning thing seems to be a bug, also reported by that Scott Manley Youtuber. It is fixed by going to the spacecenter and reloading your craft.


The problem I have with mainsail engines is they keep overheating before I make it anywhere near far enough to emptying the booster tanks. And throttling back often means abysmal climbing performance. (Also, I've found using a 1 to 3 adapter and having a stack of 3 LT800 tanks with LV-T30 engines to be super efficient.)

Maybe it's time for a "show of your launch vehicles" section

[Dutch guy]

BTW, I recently ran across this:
Ignition! An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants It contains quite a bit of slightly more boring chemics, but this man know how to write funny accounts of the insanity of developing rocket fuels

Including accounts of how some liquids can set fire to things not normally considered flammable. Like steel support structures, asbestos fireproofing blankets and rocket propellant scientists.

[Master Gunner]

The overheating problem with mainsails seems to be due to the orange fuel tanks. If you place one of the smaller wide fuel tanks between the orange tank and the mainsail, it should go away (at least, that's what I've heard, never actually tried it myself).

As for using LVT30's and 45's (aerospikes as well, though they have been made less powerful in recent versions), they are certainly more efficient. You can create engine clusters of 4-5 of those engines under the bigger tanks by using the small cubic octagonal struts or the aircraft tail connector (since they can attach to any part of another piece, and will make an attachment point below them you can mount engines on).

[Smeghead]

Landed a probe on Laythe (and actually managed to land on land)

The overheating problem with mainsails seems to be due to the orange fuel tanks. If you place one of the smaller wide fuel tanks between the orange tank and the mainsail, it should go away (at least, that's what I've heard, never actually tried it myself).

Yes this works, putting a smaller wide tank between the orange one and the engine solves the overheating problem.

[Dutch guy]

Ok, thats weird, but good to know

[Smeghead]

My Space Campervan on Minmus

Avoid landing anything on wheels on Minmus, the gravity is so low that it makes it extremely hard to control without flipping over.

[Smeghead]

Space Campervan MK2
Double the size, double the weight, double the crew, double the fun! (except the whole actually getting the thing to the Mün and landing it without crashing part)

[Smeghead]

Behold! The Space Campervan MK3! About 3-4 times as big as MK2 (still only 2 a two-man crew but it has room for 4 more).

It still has the rockets I used for landing attached to it (to my surprise they managed to make it the smoothest landing I've ever made in this game, and I still had more then half the fuel left) I just haven't decoupeled them yet.


Landing gears up. You can see the decoupelers for the engines by the batteries.

The biggest problem with this one was getting it into kerbal orbit, failed 3 times, but once in orbit everything went rather smoothly.

I designed it to be that big to stop it from tipping over. MK1 and 2 both tended to tip over when going faster then 8m/s, but this one having such a low centre of gravity and using those huge wheels is almost impossible to tip over and can get up to over 10m/s

[Smeghead]

Yay 0.20 is out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hUjGW2htpR4#!

[My pseudonym is Ix]

Interesting changes?

[Smeghead]

Of the stuff I remember;
Some new command modules like a chair!.... and some more satellite cores and a few others. New wheels, and a large docking module. A new big engine.

You can plant flags (and make your own flags).

There are now info tabs in the map mode where you get some stats on the crew and planets..

There was also some performance improvements if I recall.

I'm sure there were other things but I don't remember them right now

[My pseudonym is Ix]

*Checks to see if he can afford to buy the full version*

[Can't Wear Hats]

You can plant flags (and make your own flags).

Dang right you can! I have claimed the Mun for the forums!



If anyone wants the flag image, here's a linky: LRR Flag. You'll need to save it to GameData > Squad > Flags in your KSP folder.

Now to make a space bus and drive it to the Munbase...

[My pseudonym is Ix]

Now to make a space bus and drive it to the Munbase...

OK, I have enough money to get the game now

[Ptangmatik]

Now to make a space bus and drive it to the Munbase...

OK, I have enough money to get the game now

Dang it, you've swung me too.

[Smeghead]

Heh, why didn't I think of making an Lrr flag?

[My pseudonym is Ix]

Hey, I'm still waiting for Squadron 42/RSI/That thing wot everyone got very excited about a while back to come out so I can see the LRR mothership finally come to fruition

[empath]

...still working on that...

[Ptangmatik]

My rockets go up, my rockets come down again.

Gravity is having abso-bloody-lutely no truck with my idea of achieving orbit.

Edit: I have discovered auto-pilot, now I'm in the process of attacking the Mun with exploding Kerbal-shaped projectiles. Before I discovered autopilot I managed to get a single satellite into an elliptical orbit around Kerbal without it, but it has only a small slice of fuel left.

Now if I can only find the 'deploy landing legs' key. The problem is, it seems that in the space of time I have where it would be enabled is the space of time I need use to to press it.
(if you follow my rambling)

Edit2: So, it turns out landing on the Mun in the dark is rather difficult. Fortunately the top section of the MunPuncherI survived!

....But now that kerbal feller's stranded.




Now he's lying down... going to sleep.... oh dear

[Can't Wear Hats]

Now if I can only find the 'deploy landing legs' key. The problem is, it seems that in the space of time I have where it would be enabled is the space of time I need use to to press it.
(if you follow my rambling)

That'd be G

Edit2: So, it turns out landing on the Mun in the dark is rather difficult. Fortunately the top section of the MunPuncherI survived!

Might be worth attaching some lights to your craft, you can find them in the utilities tab in the VAB.

As for my own endeavours, Project: Space Bus for Hope is coming along nicely.



Next stop, the Mun!