Any Kerbalers here?

[trm]

Have been playing this physics sandbox game for a few days and I love it; it's sort of like a non-kiddy version of Minecrap

but with rockets, probes, planes, rovers and orbital mechanics. Plus cars, ships and pretty much anything else that has power.

Was wondering if anybody else is playing it?

I've got Munar orbit sorted, have built a nice heavy lift vehicle (Thrust-To-Weight 3.x, so ready to lift some probes and sats) and I'm going to build and launch some interplanetary probes soon.

It's sort of like orbital Lego which is everything I've asked for since I was 10.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerbal_Space_Program

 

[guddler]

Well, I'm trying - as you know!

 

[trm]

Well, I'm trying - as you know!

Absolutely Mart, but what about playing Kerbal?

 

[guddler]

 

[trm]

Hehehehe.

If it counts for anything I've just managed to crash my rock solid "Heavy Orbiter 1.2" into some space junk. I went for a different counter-clockwise orbit (gravity boosting like a ponce), wondered "oooh, what's that" in the middle of a 300kN boost orbit adjustment and hit a few tons of solidness.

Fragile third-stage stuff doesn't seem to enjoy that. Now I need to build de-orbiting rockets onto my dump stages. Sleep is for the weak anyway!

You got a stable orbit?

 

[guddler]

Nope, but I do now have a KSP account and will be downloading the full version momentarily. Cheaper to buy direct than through Steam incidentally, for anyone else that may wonder into this conversation later...

 

[trm]

Aaaaand that proves I'm a retard. I didn't think you could even buy it direct. How much is it?

This means I can send you some of my "really impressive to me, but others will wonder why they bend during launch" models!

My big lifter only tends to waver +/- 10 degrees on launch; still analysing it

 

[guddler]

Steam = £17.99
Direct = $23 = £14 something.

I didn't know you were on Steam! Send me a friend request you miserable so and so. Usual nic.

 

[guddler]

We have orbit!!

They really should sort that out - in the demo the SAS works against you. It's nigh on impossible to manoeuvre your craft with it on, so you switch it off and end up in a right mess. In the latest version it works WITH you. It dampens and keeps you stable but you can still manoeuvre, and hence achieving an orbit was actually pretty straight forward

Right, now to build me something. Skynet I think.

 

[trm]

Skynet is always plan #1

The demo instructions on SAS are pretty sh*te, but even now if I'm more than 5s into a new burn and need to shift my arse quickly I'll turn SAS on with R, turn stability off with F, make 3/4 of my correction and hit F to have it stabilise out.

I'm just lofting my heavy lifter with a docking port on the nose. And a really basic drone attached at 90 degrees on the nose which is doing wonders for my drag stats.

 

[trm]

Jeeeez!

Pootling around a solar system, got to Munar orbit, dropped orbital apogee to 4km and decided to go for a f**kit landing. Get within 5km of the surface and deploy my landing struts as a pre-landing test for the first time.

They're on upside down

So figure I can go for a grind (aka sparking) ditching, lose my rocket nozzle as a friction brake and send an unmanned rescue shuttle later to grab any stranded astronauts that survive (I want to try the Earth-bound control unit, so need an excuse for an unmanned mission).

Vertical speed (Vvel) is -40 m/s and Horizontal speed (Hvel) is way high at +100 m/s. Neither are good scrape-down speeds so I do an 80degree horiz burn to bleed off some velocity and get a bit closer to the 10 m/s H/Vvel I expect I'll need - how resilient is a supermax nozzle anyway? Given how much it oscillates in low alt density air, I'm guessing not very.

Manage to get my descent rate to about 30 m/s, and my horiz drift rate around 10 m/s (which is pretty sweet given that I pootled from Earth at 2 km/s

) and I'm about 1km from the surface.

I'M GOING TO LAND ON THE MUN!!!!

I'm focusing on the terrain below, wondering where I'll land and then...

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

Today I learned that the Mun hasn't been flattened off to sea level by meteorite strikes, and some bits protrude to at least 1km about ground. I hit a f**king mountain!

Fortunately I was quicksaving like a bastard every few seconds during Munar descent, so off to reload a save and see if I can scrape a ditch on the Mun

Amazing game!

(Whilst my lunar descent heavy was en route to Mun capture orbit I tried to build a delta-wing ramjet. Crashed and burned, but what a game!)

 

[trm]

Screenmunch as I'm about to start my retrobraking. Which fails because I don't notice the ground is a kilometer above where I expected it

 

[IDCHAPPY]

I love you're flight crew Tim

 

[guddler]

Dude - have you seen the Kerbaliser!!

https://kerbalspaceprogram.com/kerbalizer.php?free=true

Gene Simmons-Kerman FTW!

 

[trm]

Will make my Kerbal later on whilst I'm waiting for my probe to fly.

Turned out that a few quicksave-reloads later I managed to control crash my command module gently enough that the SAS ring and battery ring acted as shock absorbers, wiped off as it slid and I landed three Kerbals on the Mun!

Had fun jetpacking them around until I tried to orbit one after another and they got lost

But, about 4am we left the planet and became citizens of another world

 

[trm]

I decided to fly the Munshot training mission again to see if I could improve my transfer orbit fuel usage. That went well and I got a good elliptical orbit around Mun and realised attached to my command module was a lunar lander. So I figured I'd EVA one of my chappies over to it and see if I could land something with working landing gear.

- - -

Post separation I parked the command module in a stable Munar orbit. I'll need it later hopefully.

Bleed off a bit of horizontal speed with a retroburn.

Down at 8km above the Mun (although I don't know what height ground level is!) and some of those craters look pretty big. Tricky keeping my descent rate stable whilst doing an angled burn to bleed off more horizontal speed.

If I can see my own shadow, I must be pretty close. So ground level is about 3km then H-speed is a bit high as I'm only about 30-50 m from touchdown, V-speed looks good at about -4 m/s.

I touch the Mun, bounce and ascend 10m. Hit the engine kill switch, squint whilst hissing through my teeth waiting to see the legs fall off and the fuel blow...

BUT THEY DON'T! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! LANDED!

Time to go EVA and see what I can find, before trying to leave the Mun, locate my command module, dock, return to Earth and hopefully perform an ocean splashdown.

 

[guddler]

You've definitely got this sussed more than me! I don't even know where my horizontal vs. vertical speed is!

I was running through some of the tutorials earlier but it drained my MBA battery in pretty short order so I need to have another go when on my desktop

 

[trm]

It took a bit of messing and observation to figure it out and doesn't seem to be explained well anywhere so to save you the same hassle

For a landing descent you want to be around -5 m/s vertical when you touchdown. The figures on the top half of the dial show positive vertical speed at the same 5, 10, 100 and 1000 indicators.

The navball is a bit harder to explain. Starting from the top, you can change what your speed is calculated relative to. For an orbital burn you'll want orbit. Obv for landing you want speed relative to the ground.

The orange -v- indicator is basically the zero point of your ship. The white dot in the centre of the navball is the 0 position, so when your -v- indicator is centred on the white dot which is zero degrees, you are pointing straight up and any burn would purely affect your vertical speed. Move the -v- point to the 90 degree line on the side, the ship would be lying on its side and a burn would produce only horizontal acceleration.

So to drop horizontal speed you point your ass in the direction you're going but want to bleed off, fire thrust for a bit until your horizontal speed drops and then return to the zero point on the navball.

 

[mathj]

that was on sale on steam not so long back, was thinking about buying it but then didn't bother

add me on steam username mathj

 

[Milky]

I'd never heard of this but it looks fantastic! Quick look around YouTube and found this video. So, I'll definitely be downloading it tonight. Cheers guys!
[Tube]AFX5kZMulu0[/Tube]