Kerbals in Spaaaaace!

[Storm Bringer]

ok, stupid question of the day time;

how did you make that nosecone? I havn't a clue how to do that.

[AgentPaper]

ok, stupid question of the day time;

how did you make that nosecone? I havn't a clue how to do that.

That would be one of the mods I mentioned earlier: KW Rocketry

We should probably have a list of common mods in the first post. I'm currently running:

MechJeb
Mission Controller
Kethane
KW Rocketry
Kerbal Attachment System
Ioncross Crew Support
KSPX
Damned Robotics
Extraplanetary Launchpads
Caterpillar Tracks

[Jimorian]

We should probably have a list of common mods in the first post. I'm currently running:

Excellent idea. I pasted your list into the first post.

[Eldan]

Hmm. Mods. I'll have to look into those later.

I now have a satellite with sixteen of the largest solar sails on it in orbit. Man was that a pain to get up. The rockets couldn't go over about 3 G or the arms of the satellite part would just snap like a twig. still got it up, though.

Now Im' trying planes. My first three prototypes immediately backflip when I try to lift off.

[Impnemo]

Deadly Reentry
Ferram Aerospace
Chatterer


edit: almost forgot - RCS build aid

[nhbdy]

Good to see this game getting a thread here, it is an amazing game that I have had a ton of joy playing with, though my lastest project has been to refine a fuel tanker design for lifting my excessive wants into orbit (a full orange w/ an RCS tank on top (rockomax size) for docking/storage)... my last one was.... unstable? ~45% of the time it would suffer rapid unplanned diss-assembly and fail to make orbit, but on the plus side, it never left debris! (gotta love probes to de-orbit stages that are no longer needed)

EDIT: and once I can stop being lazy and do that, I plan on building a few stations in interplanetary space just outside of kerbin's SOI (matching it's orbit so they stay close) for use in further exploration, kinda a silly idea, but I think it sounds like fun, and deep space stations are always cool in my book

EDIT EDIT: also thought I may share some albums of my station launches so far (for this file)

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initial launch: http://imgur.com/a/azqf1

escape pods: http://imgur.com/a/Rtv0d

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Been playing this since .18 came out, and I got to say it's worth every damn penny.

I do...however see two problems with the OP:

1. You failed to note Macey Dean in the list of Youtubers. SACRILEGE. The man is the unquestioned Lord of KSP. In the linked video, he carried out an orbital war, and in his current videos, he has landed a colony on Laythe, complete with a defense force. And he did it via aerobraking, without correction, all the way from Kerbin. Holy Crap Baskets!

2. You seem to have MechPleb MechJeb listed as a mod, as opposed to CHEATING. Kindly make the correction (or note how people shouldn't start with it!).

BUT! Let's be constructive here. For one thing, let me just save everyone here a load of trouble: Build Asparagus (not sure if in tutorials). Asparagus Staging is where the side rockets on a larger rocket each have a fuel line pumping their fuel in as seen here:

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If you activate all rockets in an Asparagus formation, and then detach them in the given order, you're fuel efficiency is amazing!

Some pics of my space program:

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A successful moon-lander...that was only equipped for orbit...


Same ship on the landing pad.


My first Space Station Habitation Module. Status: Consumed by The Kraken.


Experimental Rover Design (utter crap for steering).


The Symbol of Kerbin Space Dominance (not seen: plaque reading: If you can read this, you are never going home).


Current ISS Habitation Module. Destroyed by Mass Drivers (stock-part missiles) without 'Quicksave' functioning properly.

[AgentPaper]

2. You seem to have MechPleb MechJeb listed as a mod, as opposed to CHEATING. Kindly make the correction (or note how people shouldn't start with it!).

Really don't. MechJeb is no more cheating than using ASAS is cheating. Yes, it helps you fly and plan out maneuvers, and can even take over some of the mundane tasks for you, such as Very Simple Launch #438. There's certainly merit in turning it off and piloting things manually from time to time, but because it's fun, not because it's the only "legitimate" way to do things.

Personally, the fun of the game for me is almost all in the design and engineering aspects, not in the piloting, so I use mechjeb fairly often. I also don't use save states whatsoever, again out of preference, so mechjeb helps me to avoid messing up and losing a mission.

[factotum]

Now Im' trying planes. My first three prototypes immediately backflip when I try to lift off.

Centre of lift forward of centre of mass, like I said earlier--get that moved backward and it'll work a lot better.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Really don't. MechJeb is no more cheating than using ASAS is cheating. Yes, it helps you fly and plan out maneuvers, and can even take over some of the mundane tasks for you, such as Very Simple Launch #438. There's certainly merit in turning it off and piloting things manually from time to time, but because it's fun, not because it's the only "legitimate" way to do things.

Personally, the fun of the game for me is almost all in the design and engineering aspects, not in the piloting, so I use mechjeb fairly often. I also don't use save states whatsoever, again out of preference, so mechjeb helps me to avoid messing up and losing a mission.

I personally find designing and flying ships to be equally fun, so I tend to dislike Mechjeb on that arguement (but I'm not one to be too upset over people having fun ). I've also been soured on it due to...let's be civil and just leave it at: certain "aggressive" members of the staff/community who develop KSP, and their several attitudes ("astronauts = meat-puppets").

I really only meant #2 in jest. I generally take part in the non-official KSP Forum, the one on the Unmentionable Site, so that's probably why I made the comment. It's something of a sore subject with them, and an endless source of hilarity.

Also, I linked to Macey Dean. I feel like that absolves me from everything ever.

[Eldan]

Centre of lift forward of centre of mass, like I said earlier--get that moved backward and it'll work a lot better.

Just built a new arrangement, three paralell fuselages , downward sloping wings with the landing gear at the tips and lot of wing area. Got into the air easily, currently it's crusing along on SAS and seems to be doing perfectly fine.

These things have enormous amonts of fuel, don't they?


Now I'm tempted to build a gigantic plane and use that to bring my spaceships into the upper atmosphere and launch them there. Or just attach some rockets to a plane and detach the wings and engines once I've done the fuel intensive parts of launching.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Now I'm tempted to build a gigantic plane and use that to bring my spaceships into the upper atmosphere and launch them there. Or just attach some rockets to a plane and detach the wings and engines once I've done the fuel intensive parts of launching.

Just build a space plane. I have't got one up, but I'm told it's a game of patience. Attach rockets and jet engines, but only run the jets until you slowly (45 degrees?) hit 20,000 meters, then cut engines, throttle rockets and drive that sucker straight up! I've seen some people manage much higher, like another 10 to 20,000 meters.

Pro tip: A single jet engine is more stable than two, especially if one of them suffers blow out. Then, voila! A Spaceship, that is also a Plane!

[Eldan]

There she is. Icarus I. I'm trying to use her to bring up a small base module for a space station. Just a pod and some solar panels with some connectors. The wings and jets can be blown off, as can the landing gear.

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[Eldan]

As predicted, the wings just ripped itself off.

That's my main critique on this game, by the way. Airplane design is extermely complicated. Half the time, I feel as if I'm fighting my own computer and I can almost never get it to attach the parts where I want them, no matter how much rotating and sliding things up and down a milimeter at a time I do. Some parts always don't attach to each other or refuse not to stand at a 3° angle.

[Zorg]

I don't even try at spaceplanes, not my skillset.

Well, I successfully probulated Duna:

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and saw a partial Eclipse:

and landed a large rover on the Mun:

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I call it the MCR, or Munar Command Rover. It's quite stable at up to around 15m/s, but over that you have to be careful turning. It also has low ground clearance, so when going laterally over a crest you can bottom out the centre section and do some critical damage (blew out a couple of batteries).

Unfortunately I edited it slightly and lost two very important bits: the crew ladder on the back (not so bad) and the horizontal RCS thrusters for braking assist. Tapping 'B' at over about 4m/s causes it to lock up on the front wheels and pitch forward alarmingly.
Braking at 28m/s results in a 1080 degree frontflip

Hanbus totally nailed the landing though

[Eldan]

I guess after a stable satellite, a moon landing would be next. I've managed to get into orbit around the moon on some of my first flights, but never tried landing.

[Zorg]

If you can get to the mun you can land - it's getting back that's the tricky part I landed a Kerbal on Minmus before getting a proper satellite around anything other than Kerbin as it requires much more accuracy (unless you want to land on a very particular spot).

[factotum]

Minmus is probably a better first target than the Mun--it takes a bit more effort and orbital messing around to reach it, true, but the actual landing is a piece of cake; the nice low-lying blue areas are all at 0 altitude, so if you aim for those you don't need to worry about coming down on a mountain and hitting the ground when your altitude still reads 2000m, and the gravity is so light you can get into orbit using just the manned manoeuvring thrusters on a Kerbal spacesuit!

As far as the rover tipping over thing is concerned, try putting yourself into Docking Mode while driving one. The problem is that the WSAD controls which operate the wheels also operate the normal pitch and yaw controls, and that tends to cause some trouble--if you're in docking mode you can have the Linear mode set, so the controls aren't trying to tip your rover over at the same time as turning it!

[Zorg]

For the screenshots I didn't have it in docking but for driving I do normally. It still has stability issues, but I think that's just a general terrain issue.

[The Succubus]

It's probably where I've been seeing too much of Kevak lately but I initially read this as "Kobolds in Space."

Looks awfully fun though. Might pick up a copy soon. =3

[Cikomyr]

Is it weird that I had more fun with the demo than the full thing?

The full game is just.. overwhelming in term of the quantity of components. I have no idea what I should use...

[Eldan]

After many, many explosions and ripped wings, behold:

USC Icarus VII!



Edit: I know what you mean about the demo. In fact, I'd recommend starting with the Demo and playing that for a few days. Getting things into stable orbit and so on. The full components are too overwhelming.

[nhbdy]

Is it weird that I had more fun with the demo than the full thing?

The full game is just.. overwhelming in term of the quantity of components. I have no idea what I should use...

had the same thought when I first upgraded, but you get used to it over time, and the increase in parts means more possibilities, eventually you get to the point where you know exactly what you WANT to use (though not necessarily what you should use) and it becomes more fun than the demo.... and I REALLY enjoy docking... and mods...

[Zorg]

So I landed some dudes on Duna:

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The MCRD1 'Dauntless':



Crew of three: Commander Nelemy Kerman, Pilot / Engineer Shepke Kerman and Science / Comms officer Richbles Kerman.



Yes, it looks awesome ( ) but it is a royal PITA to get down to the surface! Five chutes and a skycrane and it still took four attempts to get a non-explodey and/or upside down landing - and that's with ten practice runs on Kerbal too. Still blew all six tyres and ripped off a few non-essential bits of equipment.

It drives well, and if you gun the throttle you can pop a wheelie too Also the command section at the back can easily be removed in the VAB and replaced with things like fuel tanks (good luck landing that!) or the hitchhiker container (my first thought but then I decided I liked having a window & interior view.
The Mk2 will have an improved skycrane and a few minor tweaks, but overall very pleased if I do say so myself



After going back into the game to get screenshots I then hit "end flight" Luckily I had a quicksave... back in orbit... On the plus side I get to land somewhere new and exciting. Might try and find one of those giant canyons...

[dethkruzer]

Has anyone had any performance hiccups with this game? I have, on at least two seperate instances, suffered a seemingly unprovoked BSOD while playing the two latest versions.

[AgentPaper]

Has anyone had any performance hiccups with this game? I have, on at least two seperate instances, suffered a seemingly unprovoked BSOD while playing the two latest versions.

I did have a BSOD just yesterday, actually. That's the first and only time it's happened so far, but it is a bit worrying.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

I keep being returned to desktop. My game keeps playing, so it's only a button-click away, but it's really annoying in the middle of a delicate docking sequence for the game to CTD, leaving my thrusters going, and causing a massive orbital collision.

[Eldan]

It has crashed once or twice. But not badly or regularly.

That said, it requires insane amounts of RAM for me. 1.5 to 2 GB of RAM, at least.


In other news, Icarus X is my first space plane prototype to get off the runway. Its thrust is still only about 1G, it can barely be steered at all, I need to constantly pull up in order to avoid nosediving and I run out of fuel about 6K above ground, but I'm getting there.

And for all that, I still need six jets and two boosters.

[dethkruzer]

I did have a BSOD just yesterday, actually. That's the first and only time it's happened so far, but it is a bit worrying.

I personally find it worrying, since I only recall having experiencing one BSOD that happened outside of KSP, and i've had my computer from around 2008.

The two latest BSODs have had the screen flash black a few times, occasionally showing the borders of the KSP window, or the bottom edge toolbar on my desktop, before giving me a BSOD for a few seconds, after which the computer proceeds to reboot in a painfully slow process.

Although there was one time when the screen flashed black a few times, before complaining that the screen isn't getting any signal, meanwhile the speakers produce this terribly loud static noise. on this instance I had to manually power-down the computer and turn it back on.

These problems seem to come up most often while assembling vehicles.

[Jimorian]

Zorg, that rover looks awesome!

I get fairly frequent crashes. Error is always "CantGetCurrentThread" or something like that. Fortunately, the game auto saves frequently enough where it's not too annoying, but there doesn't seem to be a pattern. It's done it in the middle of lots of keypresses, sometimes when starting up, and also when simply idling, both in foreground and background.