Gaming The Kerbal Space Program - Version 1.2.x

[Hielor]

I THINK I found a bug. Mun landing, blah blah, planted flag on Mun arch (coincidence), blah blah, return, blah, drop to a one man cockpit, and three radial chutes. Chutes deploy. Chutes vanish. capsule accellerated from 100 m/s to 200 then slammed into the ground. Killed Jeb.

Three radial chutes is way more than you need for a one man cockpit. It's possible that the sudden deceleration caused the chutes to pop off, or that the speed dropped so low that the chutes collapsed.

 

[Fabri91]

Did you pop them below 500 meters? If yes, they will immediately inflate and decelerate you VERY quickly.

 

[BruceJohnJennerLawso]

Did you pop them below 500 meters? If yes, they will immediately inflate and decelerate you VERY quickly.

Its just so entertaining to open the chutes 100m before you hit the water though :lol:. That doesn't usually break them for me though.

 

[N_Molson]

Yep, over-chuting is as dangerous as under-chuting.

I have some problems with aircraft design, but that's not a bug, just my poor skills as an amateur aerodynamician. My turbojets-equipped aircrafts that typically cruise between 16-19km of altitude always have a nasty positive AoA of 15-20°, which isn't efficient. What can I do to fight this ? Angling wings or rudder ? :hmm:

I tried various configs, but still the same. By the way I want to stay under the speeds where air friction creates those re-entry flames (that drop the framerate and tell me I shouldn't be flying so fast, typically over 700 m/s, which makes sense).

 

[BruceJohnJennerLawso]

I have some problems with aircraft design, but that's not a bug, just my poor skills as an amateur aerodynamician. My turbojets-equipped aircrafts that typically cruise between 16-19km of altitude always have a nasty positive AoA of 15-20°, which isn't efficient. What can I do to fight this ? Angling wings or rudder ? :hmm:

You know how to turn on the indicators for center of CG & center of lift in the VAB?

 

[N_Molson]

You know how to turn on the indicators for center of CG & center of lift in the VAB?

Of course, and I know that the CL should be slightly behind the CG, and never in front of... Also that the CG shifts with fuel consumption... But there are other things I'm missing obviously.

 

[BruceJohnJennerLawso]

Of course, and I know that the CL should be slightly behind the CG, and never in front of... Also that the CG shifts with fuel consumption... But there are other things I'm missing obviously.

Other way around. You want the CL slightly in front of the CG, so that your lift force will edge the nose slightly upwards on takeoff, instead of downwards into the tarmac. You don't want to put it too far forward though, cause the torque will start to make the ship uncontrollable.

 

[N_Molson]

The KR-71 "Whitebird" can fly with an AoA of "only" 8-10°.

Here Jebediah Kerman just conquered the Kerave Desert thanks to that plane. Good all-terrain characteristics (in KSP, planes must be built the russian way on that aspect)

 

[Fabri91]

An angle of attack of as much as 10° as you described is normal in KSP, but you could try to increase the wing surface to decrease wing loading, but that's the only thing that comes to my mind. :idk:

Regarding 0.20: external seats = free extra carrying capability!

The new Economy Class, with panoramic view! Now available on hypersonic planes, Munar landers and space station evacuation pods!

 

[N_Molson]

Haha I love the one with the flaming helmets


1050 m/s at 19 km of altitude is within the operational enveloppe of the KR-71. It tends to overheat a bit though. Just a bit.

Back to KSC after a rescue mission. My first Kerbal in orbit overshoot his reentry by 1000 kilometers. The first rescue plane I sent crashed at landing (well, lost its engines). So I had 2 Kerbals in the wild. Jebediah Kerman and a KR-71 -RS (modified for rescue, notice the "Mercury" capsules on the nosecone and at the tail to bring back the two Kerbs in whole comfort) handled that delicate mission superbly.

The heroes were even back at Kerbal City, jewel of the Kerbal Coast (well, it looks like a scrapyard and basically it is one), for dawn.

 

[Pablo49]

Dropping the departure stage. The lander looks so weird since when I was designing it, I was focusing mainly on getting a solid deploying rover, that I finished building the lancher and got it into orbit without solar panels or lights. (And no RCS onteh ascent stage, which I didn't notice until I was in mun orbit) So I launched a small ship with a battery/solararray/light module and docked it to the lander.

My lander after it's deorbit burn. Thankfully the rover did not fall off when undocking from the command module that time

Catching some "air" time in the rover

NAILED IT

Everytime I focus onto the flag, another leg explodes.

Been playing KSP quite a bit lately as it was easy to play while at work, so Ive been continuing the missions I started then.

 

[MattBaker]

The lander looks so weird

Weird looking spacecraft, huh?

But enough Delta-V to send the capsule to a mun orbit and back, so no complaints.:shrug:

 

[N_Molson]

FleaHop VI & VII, first orbital rendez-vous with joint EVA and crew exchange. It was a nice one.

Next : FleaHop VIII, which will be equipped with a docking port in the aft and will dock an Agena-like unmanned vehicle.

 

[mojoey]

Feels good man, every time.

 

[APDAF]

What did he smoke?
:rofl:

 

[MattBaker]

All that effort just to put one sole Kerbal in a nearly one ton heavy tincan on Duna and back again.

Bonus fun fact: It has a tight delta-v-budget and I don't even know if it's gonna make it or not. Also no parachutes for aerobraking on Duna included.

 

[mojoey]

I had an idea, and I figured I'd run it by you guys to see if it made sense.

I've got Base A, and I want to start putting habitats and such on the Mun. Problem is, the selection of parts I have is minimal (Mechjeb, KW, Stock). This makes it very hard to get a stable vehicle capable of much more than a small Mun Lander. So if I were to launch a space station that acted like a giant gas station, allowing me to put up smaller rockets, but the chance to fill their tanks. Ideas are welcome.

 

[MattBaker]

This makes it very hard to get a stable vehicle capable of much more than a small Mun Lander.

Sorry but I don't get that one. Even with stock parts it's quite easy to build big Mun landers depending on what you'd define as big. A simple manned lunar landing of mine would carry 14 tons to the Munar surface so I'm quite sure you could optimize this to 20 ton-modules which sounds quite large to me.

 

[mojoey]

My rockets tend to wobble, and handle like greased pigs.

 

[N_Molson]

All that effort just to put one sole Kerbal in a nearly one ton heavy tincan on Duna and back again.

The whole paradox of spaceflight... See the Saturn-V mass vs the LM mass