XR5 High Payload XR5 Ascent

[Nemoricus]

Unfortunately, that data log is fairly impenetrable, and leaves out some important information, like pitch and thrust settings.

However, I do have some good news. For people with less beefy computers who nonetheless want to attempt this challenge, there's a handy little setting in the config file that will allow you to set the mass of your cargo to 432 metric tons.

In the cheat codes section of the XR5VanguardPrefs.cfg, there is this line:

#CargoMass=432000

Remove the pound sign from the start, and voila, 432 metric tons of cargo and not a whit of additional load on your computer. This should make it easier to make recordings.

BEGIN_DESC
Contains the latest simulation state.
END_DESC

BEGIN_ENVIRONMENT
  System Sol
  Date MJD 55985.5072514892
END_ENVIRONMENT

BEGIN_FOCUS
  Ship XR5-01
END_FOCUS

BEGIN_CAMERA
  TARGET XR5-01
  MODE Cockpit
  FOV 40.00
END_CAMERA

BEGIN_HUD
  TYPE Surface
END_HUD

BEGIN_PANEL
END_PANEL

BEGIN_SHIPS
XR5-01:XR5Vanguard
  STATUS Landed Earth
  POS -14.4343728 -7.9701501
  HEADING 118.48
  RCSMODE 0
  PRPLEVEL 0:1.000000 1:1.000000 2:1.000000
  IDS 0:199 100
  NAVFREQ 94 524 84 114
  XPDR 193
  SECONDARY_HUD 3
  LAST_ACTIVE_SECONDARY_HUD 0
  ADCTRL_MODE 0
  TAKEOFF_LANDING_CALLOUTS 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000
  APU_FUEL_QTY 1
  LOX_QTY 1.000000
  CABIN_O2_LEVEL 0.209000
  CREW_STATE 0
  INTERNAL_SYSTEMS_FAILURE 0
  COGSHIFT_MODES 0 0 0
  MWS_ACTIVE 0
  COOLANT_TEMP 31.200000
  DMG_0 1.000000 Left Wing
  DMG_1 1.000000 Right Wing
  DMG_2 1.000000 Left Aileron
  DMG_3 1.000000 Right Aileron
  DMG_4 1.000000 Landing Gear
  DMG_5 1.000000 Docking Port
  DMG_6 1.000000 Retro Doors
  DMG_7 1.000000 Top Hatch
  DMG_8 1.000000 Radiator
  DMG_9 1.000000 Airbrake
  DMG_10 1.000000 Left Main Engine
  DMG_11 1.000000 Right Main Engine
  DMG_12 1.000000 Left SCRAM Engine
  DMG_13 1.000000 Right SCRAM Engine
  DMG_14 1.000000 Fore Hover Engine
  DMG_15 1.000000 Aft Hover Engine
  DMG_16 1.000000 Left Retro Engine
  DMG_17 1.000000 Right Retro Engine
  DMG_18 1.000000 Forward Lower RCS
  DMG_19 1.000000 Aft Upper RCS
  DMG_20 1.000000 Forward Upper RCS
  DMG_21 1.000000 Aft Lower RCS
  DMG_22 1.000000 Forward Star. RCS
  DMG_23 1.000000 Aft Port RCS
  DMG_24 1.000000 Forward Port RCS
  DMG_25 1.000000 Aft Star. RCS
  DMG_26 1.000000 Outboard Upper Port RCS
  DMG_27 1.000000 Outboard Lower Star. RCS
  DMG_28 1.000000 Outboard Upper Star. RCS
  DMG_29 1.000000 Outboard Lower Port RCS
  DMG_30 1.000000 Aft RCS
  DMG_31 1.000000 Forward RCS
  DMG_32 1.000000 Bay Doors
  DMG_33 1.000000 Elevator
  IS_CRASHED 0
  MET_STARTING_MJD -1.000000
  INTERVAL1_ELAPSED_TIME -1.000000
  INTERVAL2_ELAPSED_TIME -1.000000
  MET_RUNNING 0
  INTERVAL1_RUNNING 0
  INTERVAL2_RUNNING 0
  ACTIVE_MDM 3
  TEMP_SCALE 2
  CUSTOM_AUTOPILOT_MODE 0
  AIRSPEED_HOLD_ENGAGED 0
  SCRAM0DIR 0.000000 0.000000 1.000000
  SCRAM1DIR 0.000000 0.000000 1.000000
  HOVER_BALANCE 0.000000
  MAIN0DIR 0.000000 0.000000 1.000000
  MAIN1DIR 0.000000 0.000000 1.000000
  GIMBAL_BUTTON_STATES 0 0 0 0 0 0
  ATTITUDE_HOLD_DATA 0.000000 0.000000 0 0 0.000000
  DESCENT_HOLD_DATA 0.000000 -3.000000 0
  AIRSPEED_HOLD_DATA 0.000000
  OVERRIDE_INTERLOCKS 0 0
  TERTIARY_HUD_ON 1
  CREW_DISPLAY_INDEX 0
  GEAR 1 1.0000
  RCOVER 0 0.0000
  DOCKINGPORT 0 0.0000
  AIRLOCK 0 0.0000
  IAIRLOCK 0 0.0000
  CHAMBER 0 0.0000
  AIRBRAKE 0 0.0000
  RADIATOR 0 0.0000
  LADDER 0 0.0000
  HATCH 0 0.0000
  SCRAM_DOORS 0 0.0000
  HOVER_DOORS 0 0.0000
  BAY_DOORS 0 0.0000
  ELEVATOR 0 0.0000
  APU_STATUS 1
  EXTCOOLING_STATUS 1
  TRIM 0.000000
  LIGHTS 1 0 1
  XRUMMU_CREW_DATA_VALID 1
  UMMUCREW XI0-Tom_Fisher-37-65-78
  UMMUCREW XI1-Russ_Hicks-29-65-54
  UMMUCREW XI2-Doug_Beachy-36-68-58
  UMMUCREW XI3-Steve_Tyler-24-71-68
  UMMUCREW XI4-Katherine_Quinn-28-67-56
  UMMUCREW XI5-Cameron_Mitchell-36-65-77
  UMMUCREW XI6-Samantha_Carter-33-66-53
  UMMUCREW XI7-Daniel_Jackson-35-68-75
  UMMUCREW XI8-Teal_c-31-64-104
  UMMUCREW XI9-Vala_Mal_Doran-30-67-53
  UMMUCREW XI10-Elizabeth_Weir-36-68-56
  UMMUCREW XI11-John_Sheppard-34-64-77
  UMMUCREW XI12-Rodney_McKay-35-72-90
  UMMUCREW XI13-Teyla_Emmagan-27-68-57
  UMMUCREW XI14-Ronon_Dex-32-63-97
  UMMUCREW XI15-Carson_Beckett-38-74-95
  UMMUCREW XI16-Lee_Adama-26-65-74
  UMMUCREW XI17-Kara_Thrace-26-67-55
  RCS_DOCKING_MODE 0
  ACTIVE_EVA_PORT 0
  PAYLOAD_SCREENS_DATA 0.2 4 1 15
END
XR5-01_Bay:XRPayloadBay
  STATUS Landed Earth
  POS -14.4345607 -7.9700492
  HEADING 118.48
  ATTACHED 0:36,XR5-01
  AFCMODE 7
END
END_SHIPS

Scenario for people doing that.

 

[jthill]

Here's a playback. It's only 25.7% left because I did lazy ApA-maintenance burns after MECO but before reaching ApA, to keep from having to go through the circularization tedium; the ascent to MECO is pretty good.

important information, like pitch and thrust settings

Thrust is 100% except when docking or the like. Pitch ... meh. DNP, VAcc and AoA are the important numbers. If you're following a pitch recipe you're guaranteed to get it at least a little bit wrong during flight, which means you're off the ideal track, but pitch won't tell you which way to correct. You find out what your pitch should be by looking at how DNP, VAcc and AoA are behaving. Ascent rate is useful as a quick guide to how long you have to the next boundary layer.

(Edit: the 25.7 is not because of the post-MECO burns. In fact, it turns out those were more efficient than the usual method. So there's definitely room to improve on this playback).

 

[orbekler]

In orbit, at 300.0 x 300.0km, 0.04° RIn, 18% main fuel (I forgot to snapshot, don't remember RCS, maybe ~30%). I wanted to see if I could still land, so eventually (emergency landing!) at Cape Canaveral, main fuel= 0%!!!:lol:
Attacched: scenario + playback.
http://www.mediafire.com/?t9lcf2722jp274j
I'm sure I recorded the playback, and stopped too, but for some reason it doesn't work, seems a normal scenario.

 

[Grover]

We werent aiming to match planes, just launch out of AIA on runway heading

 

[orbekler]

We werent aiming to match planes, just launch out of AIA on runway heading

I misunderstood, I read about ISS targeting (Tommy?), I tought it was a good challenge.
Runway heading is MUCH easier...
I'll do it, provided it works recording...

 

[jthill]

I think minimum-time-to-dock would be an interesting challenge too.

 

[Nemoricus]

Here's another attempt of mine. jthill's 40 degree ascent through the lower atmosphere seems to work well, by at least a full percentage point of main fuel. I trim to keep about 100m/s vertical speed starting at 10km, then level off at 25km to reach scram velocity. From there my ascent is much like my other ones.

25.9% left in the main tank after this ascent.

 

[orbekler]

Here's another attempt of mine. jthill's 40 degree ascent through the lower atmosphere seems to work well, by at least a full percentage point of main fuel. I trim to keep about 100m/s vertical speed starting at 10km, then level off at 25km to reach scram velocity. From there my ascent is much like my other ones.

25.9% left in the main tank after this ascent.

That's what I did, I got left 24% main fuel, now that it works again the playback recording, I'll post a launch.
BTW: no cross-feed, right? Also in Parameters settings I enabled all Perturbations.

---------- Post added at 05:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:16 PM ----------

I'm afraid that with all Perturbations active, it's much harder than I thought (I can't reach Apsis - osculating elements?)...
I cannot be really satisfied, but I suppose that the very limit will be about 30% of main fuel. Here my launch, but I'll try again with no Perturbations.
Main fuel: 27.9%, RCS: 98.0%, and :facepalm: Orbit: 305.8k x 289.2k
Here the link to the playback:
http://www.mediafire.com/?0qze4k9p58g19u7

 

[PennyBlack]

OK... I just managed to do it without transfering any rcs to the main. I've only got 3.3 pecent main fuel left though, even following the prior posts as advice.
My compliments to those with above 25 percent.

Here is a current scn, to show that at least I have managed to make it into orbit and thanx for the tips. :tiphat:

View attachment (Current state).scn

 

[jthill]

Main fuel: 27.9%

Holy Probe, orbekler! Nemoricus's 33DNP at scram ignition got me thinking. Target max main fuel remaining at scram cutover, max DNP during the mach 7-9 scram efficiency peak (I topped out at 10999.9N main thrust, near 1G accel), reduce DNP at scrams-empty. I was all proud of the 26.9% main fuel that got me.

How did you do that?

Here's my playback anyway, maybe it'll pass on the the set-off-a-train-of-thought favor Nemoricus gave.

 

[jthill]

I just managed to do it without transfering any rcs to the main.

You probably already know this, but doing it at all is a fairly big deal. I remember the first time I managed to get the DGex to orbit, learning not to try to overpower Mother Nature is hard. So I don't imagine my personal congratulations mean much, and speaking for others is ... erm, yeah, well anyway, I imagine everyone noticed your milestone and felt a little memory-bump. Congrats on a big step.

 

[orbekler]

Holy Probe, orbekler! Nemoricus's 33DNP at scram ignition got me thinking. Target max main fuel remaining at scram cutover, max DNP during the mach 7-9 scram efficiency peak (I topped out at 10999.9N main thrust, near 1G accel), reduce DNP at scrams-empty. I was all proud of the 26.9% main fuel that got me.

How did you do that?

Just above the picture in my previous post there is the link to the playback.
My idea was to start scram at about 3 mach. It starts to lighten vessel (if not, you'll end up with heating scram, and drop 5% to 25% completely wasted fuel, depending on the payload), while giving a small increasing acceleration, up to 6 mach and over, where it has the highest efficiency.

 

[jthill]

I don't know enough to call it perfect or anything, the only thing I can do with your ascent to scram ignition is admire it and hope to equal it someday. I tried. It's beautiful.

Light the scrams early to save mains fuel for later, when drag is much lower. Now that I see it, "of course", of course.

The high DNP at mains relight and the high AoA near MECO looked wrong, so I got as close as I could to your early profile and then tried for a smooth transition from max accel at Mach 7 - Mach 9 to max L/D during scrams ascent to straight prograde at MECO, and got 28.8%. Your 30% estimate is starting to look tantalizing, if I could match your initial profile that'd get about a third of the difference right there.

 

[orbekler]

...and got 28.8%....

WOW!!! Thumbs up!!! Now it begins to be really interesting! I must admit, I think that I'm not going to go past that number!
At least not until I got new reliable joystick that gives me a decent resolution (now is about 1.5cm) for main and retro thrust.
However I agree with Wishbone, for a given vessel, coordinates and heading there should be ONE only way the get the best ascent profile, but I don't have a clue about do that by the numbers, just eyeball's guessing...:facepalm:
I'm going to have a look to your replay, so I can improve.:thumbup:

Edit: I'm watching right now, but I don' see the payload, and total mass is about 570 tons. Is there something wrong with the replay file?

 

[jthill]

I'm using Nemoricus's config-file mass override because the playback capture overhead for 36 cargos was too much, see earlier in the thread. I've given improving it a couple stabs, not having any luck. I tried higher DNP at scram peak, that didn't work -- start lower or start later, either costs fuel. There might be some room with tuning AoA while running out the scrams, I notice it's been a while since I got them hot enough to trip alarms.

 

[orbekler]

I'm using Nemoricus's config-file mass override because the playback capture overhead for 36 cargos was too much, see earlier in the thread. I've given improving it a couple stabs, not having any luck. I tried higher DNP at scram peak, that didn't work -- start lower or start later, either costs fuel. There might be some room with tuning AoA while running out the scrams, I notice it's been a while since I got them hot enough to trip alarms.

Yep, but Nemoricus playback shows the payload mass, while yours not. I'm just trying to figure out what's the difference. I used standard cfg, that has the same parameters posted in this thread, but no mass override, I'll try later again to launch with override enabled.

EDIT: sorry, now also Nemoricus playback doesn't show anymore payload, I'm baffled, trying to see what's going on.

---------- Post added at 11:23 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:00 AM ----------

Jthill, sorry, it was my fault, I had to change config file, now mass is 1000 tons!:thumbup:
Then challenge continues, hu?:lol:

 

[jthill]

Random stuff:

==

I wonder whether your joystick isn't causing more trouble than you know. I fly keyboard-only. Control inputs mean using energy for angular acceleration. Hands-off flight, do as much as possible with just trim.

==

You mentioned plane alignment earlier. If you watch the align-planes MFD, you can tune your bank angle so Rate will bring RInc to zero when TN reaches zero. That's the idea, anyway, and in practice you can get more than just close enough. The key observation is that the MFD calculates on ballistics, and you're accelerating: bank affects the TN rate too. See my Challenge 1 playback if you want to see how that works. Reaching orbit all lined up costs very little.

==

Oh: I figured out the initial ascent problem -- it was the sound barrier! I noticed when the boom popped I was getting a nice accel boost, which meant I was waiting too long to get past it. I can match your scram ignition now

29.4%.

 

[orbekler]

Random stuff:

==

I wonder whether your joystick isn't causing more trouble than you know. I fly keyboard-only. Control inputs mean using energy for angular acceleration. Hands-off flight, do as much as possible with just trim.

==

You mentioned plane alignment earlier. If you watch the align-planes MFD, you can tune your bank angle so Rate will bring RInc to zero when TN reaches zero. That's the idea, anyway, and in practice you can get more than just close enough. The key observation is that the MFD calculates on ballistics, and you're accelerating: bank affects the TN rate too. See my Challenge 1 playback if you want to see how that works. Reaching orbit all lined up costs very little.

==

Oh: I figured out the initial ascent problem -- it was the sound barrier! I noticed when the boom popped I was getting a nice accel boost, which meant I was waiting too long to get past it. I can match your scram ignition now

29.4%.

I saw your ascent, perfect (scram at 49% of main fuel), and a very smooth circularization. Yes, I use actually a joypad, so I can comfortably sit on the armchair...
But I have to ask you, I saw that you were tapping out of -apses, without changing altitude of apoapsis. Interesting tecnique, explain in detail, if you like, cause I think it' the hardest work in this challenge (BTW, I have still Perturbations on - does it change something?).

The first try I did was actually a launch to ISS, starting from node and heading for the lowest possible RIn, (but eventually this was still about 1°), RCS (about 25% left) was burning almost like main (about 18% left), but I have no replay of that, and in anyway was a poor try.

Yes, the problem with XR-5 full load is that if you ascent pitching too high from the beginning, it will take ages to reach only mach 1...
Now You're gold medal, an I think you'll be for quite a long time, Maestro.:thumbup:

 

[jthill]

I found the ApA-maintenance taptaptap trick by accident a couple days ago -- it's my first playback in this thread, and I did it thinking I was being lazy. I haven't digested it yet, I think it's significant. See my comment when I discovered it wasn't responsible for the poorer result than I'd posted before: "In fact, it turns out those were more efficient than the usual method." Hmmmm.

So when I see the ApA drop enough to annoy me, I drop out of warp and tap the throttle until it boosts back up. The playback doesn't synchronize that very well.

As for the flight, when you watch it you're looking at your ascent profile and Nemoricus's initial scram DNP. The AoA profile for the scrams run, low enough to rub up against hull overheat then raising to max L/D around 7deg at the end, that's my part.

(edit: I run all perturbations on too, without them it doesn't feel enough like a simulator to me)