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Kerbal Space Program |OT| 1.2 Loud and Clear - Comm Networks, New Fuel Flow and More

phoenixyz

Member
What settings for the campaign are you all playing on? Personally I found progress with the default settings to be much too slow with too much grinding science so I set science gain to 200% and funds to 150%.
 

Mengy

wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
What settings for the campaign are you all playing on? Personally I found progress with the default settings to be much too slow with too much grinding science so I set science gain to 200% and funds to 150%.

I'm in a normal career, with Kerbal death turned on and reverting allowed. I wanted the Kerbals to be mortal so that it was more tense and dangerous, but with save games and reverting the danger is merely temporary, lol. With how much time and effort it takes to level up the Kerbals I don't see me letting any of them die for keeps.

Speaking of careers, now that I have my Mun orbital station crunching science and my Minmus surface base doing the same, I let the game run for a bit on max time accel last night while I ate supper, and this was the result!

TC5oy0l.png


Hah, I've got every node of the tech tree unlocked and I've never even been out of Kerbin space yet! Now I should really be able to build some fantastic rockets!

Duna is my next target.....
 

r1chard

Member
Hah, I've got every node of the tech tree unlocked and I've never even been out of Kerbin space yet! Now I should really be able to build some fantastic rockets!
How did you do this - without it feeling grindy?

Did you farm all the science from around the KSC?
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
How did you do this - without it feeling grindy?

Did you farm all the science from around the KSC?


I'm not far off and I haven't yet biome hopped around minmus. I did the local space centre stuff with a little buggy early on, then the basic orbit EVA/crew report/science around kerbin/mun/minmus, landed and did surface samples on both mun and minmus, and I did a polar orbit on minmus to get EVA reports from all biomes. Oh and a monile processing lab on minmus. Just filled it with 500 and left it to do its thing while I went off and did contracts, that had netted me a few hundred already.

I think if I do some concerted minmus hopping with my science equipment and process some of that in the lab, it'll be enough to unlock the rest.

I've still not gone further than minmus (other than one poorly executed sun orbit contract), but I'm not grinding for science - I've been distracted from biome hopping by building a multipart space station in munar orbit, which started out as a basis to get some munar contracts done but I've gone off on a tangent now :)

The other planets time will come, but I probably still want to scrape science from minmus and maybe experiment with ore mining/scanning. No idea how to deal with transfer windows, or gravity assists etc. should be fun.
 

DBT85

Member
You don't need gravity assists to get anywhere, but you can use them if you want to make things interesting or get there with a launch outside a standard window.

The other thing is aerobraking above a planet to slow down rather than wasting fuel.
 

Mengy

wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
How did you do this - without it feeling grindy?

Did you farm all the science from around the KSC?

I did a lot of biome hopping around Kerbin, Mun, and Minmus. I have a Mun orbital science station with three scientists on it that has been processing lots of Mun data for years now, lol. And I just put a Minmus surface station (also with three scientists) that has hopped around the planet and collected data that it's been crunching for half a year game time now. I've also done an awful lot of missions. I've rescued about a dozen Kerbals from space (great for getting new astronauts for free), I've put up over a dozen satellites, tested many a component, and taken tourists all over the Kerbin sphere of influence. On top of all the science it's earned me tons of money and rep too.
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
Just had a contract pop up to build a surface base on minmus for about 600k in funds. Basically need something that supports 6 kerbals with a cupola. What's the cheapest/lightest thing I can use for that? Cupola is only for one person, so a cupola + two hitchikers? Or a cupola, one hitchhiker and a mk1 lander can?

seems to be easy money




edit: My first attempt at a space station in orbit around the mun. Will send a lander or two up so that I can easily do surface samples etc and also return kerbals back home. Might experiment with refuelling too.

edit2: hmm, screenshot didn't work. Trying again
 

r1chard

Member
I'm not far off and I haven't yet biome hopped around minmus...
Interesting, thanks. Still, feels a bit like grinding to me - like if I was to start a new game with career mode I'd have to do basically the same things to scrape all that science.

On the other hand, I just sent my first mission to Duna (orbit) and Ike (landed, took a few samples) and ended up with a couple of thousand science. Hmm.

I did install a plugin (ScienceAlert) which alerts me to new science being available which significantly bumped up that mission's science haul.

I just feel like this aspect of the game is not well designed.


The other planets time will come, but I probably still want to scrape science from minmus and maybe experiment with ore mining/scanning. No idea how to deal with transfer windows, or gravity assists etc. should be fun.
I've only just (at 220 hours into the game) managed my first Duna-and-back mission (the Duna satellite I mentioned was launched at the same time). I love me a good gravity assist (in Kerbin SOI it's always fun) but the most useful thing for other planets has to be Protractor. Without it you're just guessing (eyeballing) and wasting significant amounts of dV.

I'm currently planning my first multi-craft mission to Duna's surface (one science base, a second launch with a rover and a final launch with a bus to being everyone home - I've not unlocked the tech tree enough to send everything in a single launch). I've gotten distracted by trying to design a Tier-6-max SSTO spaceplane that could also land and take off from Duna with the science lab. It's been ... a challenge. I estimate I've spent about 5 hours trying to design the thing so far with no luck getting it into orbit around Kerbin for refuelling. I reckon I'm going to give in and go back to the multi-craft approach until I can unlock the RAPIER and heavy aircraft parts.
 
OK Guyz so I got bored of doing easy contracts to get 1 science and such so I made a Kart:

2015-06-07_00014.jpg


Which goes up to 65 m/s which is something like 240 km/h. Not bad hahaha

Anyway, got to mine that sci!
 

r1chard

Member
I'm getting good at combining missions - like a double Kerbin rescue or a Minmus rescue + Minmus "satellite".

Except that I forgot the damn thermometer on the Minmus craft. Ugh :)
 

DBT85

Member
Ha, yeah its not KSP unless you forget basic things.

I still forget to move the chute out of the same stage as the SRB on my first rocket every time!

Got a few hours in last night, used Precise Node a bit, it's now a must have. Also KErbal Alarm Clock for those that don;t have it already. Essential if you have more than one ship in flight at once or use time warp too much lol.

I don't typically do part test contracts that aren't on the ground, but since I had two vessels on the way to Mun (one to plough into it in the name of science and one to orbit it for a contract), I decided to take one to test the mk16 chute at 16,000m and a speed of 400m/s. For a chance I decided to try and build an aircraft to test it out.

After much fiddling with different things and reverts after hilarious crashes I finally started getting somewhere, but at about 13,000m all my designs just lost all lift and I never made it.

I find rockets you can get away with flying on a keyboard but planes just jerk all over the place like an epileptic pigeon at a disco.

I'm also turning off the default tourism contracts and survey contract I think, in favour of player made ones that are more interesting like the one for a space station.
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
Yeah I tried a 360 controller for planes, but the setup isn't great, and adjusting it is clumsy


I got a contract for a duna flyby, but apparantly my best time to launch is in a year! And I still have no idea if I have enough dv for it. Need to check out that alarm clock
 

r1chard

Member
Ugh, just made a massive quick-load mistake. Thought I'd quicksaved in the current mission, turns out I'd not, and the quick-load reverted back several missions :/

Edit: and I'm back to where I was, but I did a bunch of other missions along the way that I didn't do the first time because I wasn't used to using the alarm clock. Now I have several missions in flight at a time. I think I might have to cull the mods though - game's getting very crashy :(
 

r1chard

Member
OK, when the mission says to build a station in orbit and it has to be a new station? You can't re-use part of an old station that is already there to make your ... "new" station :) darned game, too smart for me :)
 

DBT85

Member
Yeah the missions should say new really.

I've turned off all the tourism ones now, just wasting space on my contracts list lol.

Got my Mun SCANSat into orbit last night and scanning away for my newly revamped mission pack.

Still having ships flip over half way through launch somehow but managing to save them thanks to TWR lol.
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
Wow, this game gets taxing on your computer fast. Was happily playing away until I was docking with my new space station - so the first time I've had a lot of parts together. It really got chuggy. This is on a 3570k and gtx970 so should be ok. I had to turn the AA off and shadows/lights right down to get the framerate back up (they were already down on 8 - can't imagine anyone running them on 64..)

after docking, my station now has 370 parts, and it's not huge
 

DBT85

Member
Yeah it can be a pain.

It's all about part counts, something else that Unity 5 should help with.

One option is things like procedural tanks. Instead of having 2 or 3 of a tank in a row on your ship, use a procedural one that is the same size but is only one unit. Also its better structurally.

Need screens though!
 

DBT85

Member
It's being worked on and progress is being made. No ETA though.

They didn't start until May 13th so it could be another month or two yet. Some games managed to port in 4 weeks but the physics change a bit in U5 and obviously that's kind of integral to KSP so might take more time.

Proper 64 bit support on windows and better physics will be great though. With the ability for more mods to use more memory it will really help with some things.

No idea what U5 will mean as far as DX 11 or 12 goes as the game runs in DX9 currently.
 

Mengy

wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
Is there a way to refresh the applicant list in the astronaut center? I need some more scientists!

Do rescue missions, it's how I've gotten all of my astronauts. I have a roster of like a dozen and a half kerbal astronauts now just via rescues, I've not hired a single kerbal yet.
 

Cecilathan

Neo Member
I don't know if the smaller diameter parts just wobble *less* or what, but now that I've graduated to 2.5m rockets, it seems that every thing I put up wobbles to a very annoying degree. It would be one thing if I had a bunch of different diameter parts stuck together, but I'm using 2.5m exclusively.

I was trying to put a station into orbit around the Mun, and the Pe was going nuts! It seemed the only time it was stable was during time warp. I figure the weak link in the rocket is the decoupler, but again, it is all 2.5m parts, shouldn't it be stable? Is there anything I can do?

So frustrating.
 

DBT85

Member
Is is a stack of parts or is it a bit spread out?

When you engage time warp it stops calculating physics which is why the Pe and Ap stop moving.

One option cna be to turn off SAS in case its that causing your wobble.

2.5m should be more stable than 1.5m though.
 

ElFly

Member
It's being worked on and progress is being made. No ETA though.

They didn't start until May 13th so it could be another month or two yet. Some games managed to port in 4 weeks but the physics change a bit in U5 and obviously that's kind of integral to KSP so might take more time.

Proper 64 bit support on windows and better physics will be great though. With the ability for more mods to use more memory it will really help with some things.

No idea what U5 will mean as far as DX 11 or 12 goes as the game runs in DX9 currently.

Hope it allows it to load the entire game in memory at once, and eliminate the lame load times when going in and out the buildings.
 

Cecilathan

Neo Member
Is is a stack of parts or is it a bit spread out?

When you engage time warp it stops calculating physics which is why the Pe and Ap stop moving.

One option cna be to turn off SAS in case its that causing your wobble.

2.5m should be more stable than 1.5m though.

During the transition to the Mun, it was just a stack. Nothing other than 2.5m parts, no docking ports or anything mis-matched. I had asparagus staging set up on the ascent portion of my heavy lifter, but after everything was peeled off and only the center tanks remained was where I really noticed the wobbling. I never tried to shut off SAS, I shall try that, next time, and see how it goes.
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
During the transition to the Mun, it was just a stack. Nothing other than 2.5m parts, no docking ports or anything mis-matched. I had asparagus staging set up on the ascent portion of my heavy lifter, but after everything was peeled off and only the center tanks remained was where I really noticed the wobbling. I never tried to shut off SAS, I shall try that, next time, and see how it goes.


With long craft,SAS can make wobbling worse as it can be slow to react and adjust, so the wobble can get worse and worse.
 

DBT85

Member
Well, my SCANSats are doing teir work around Kerbin and Mun and I've just done something for the first time!

Sent a probe to fly around mun and return home with two Science Jr and 2 Goo pods. Never thought to make a probe come home before! lol.
 

Cecilathan

Neo Member
With long craft,SAS can make wobbling worse as it can be slow to react and adjust, so the wobble can get worse and worse.

That makes sense, as soon as I separated the two huge tanks, everything worked wonderfully, which is why I assumed it was the Rockomax decoupler causing the wobble.

Finally got my station to the surface of the Mun. Loaded it up with science and got my Kerbals reasearching, and I think I found a bug. When I increase time warp, the battery drain ramps up, from 5, up to 500 at 100x, but after that battery usage drops to 0, and research keeps happening, event though the batteries should be long dead. when I slow it to 100x, batteries drain as normal and I go dark until the sun comes back, but if I turn warp up fast enough, it doesn't use any power.
 

Crispy75

Member
If you have a long rocket that's "bendy", then you can end up with a situation where the capsule is pointing left while the engine is pointing right. The SAS in the capsule sees the leftwards motion and tells the rocket to turn to the right, which only makes things worse.

Putting a probe core at the craft's COG and enabling Control From Here helps, because the COG will not bend and wobble around
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
That makes sense, as soon as I separated the two huge tanks, everything worked wonderfully, which is why I assumed it was the Rockomax decoupler causing the wobble.

Finally got my station to the surface of the Mun. Loaded it up with science and got my Kerbals reasearching, and I think I found a bug. When I increase time warp, the battery drain ramps up, from 5, up to 500 at 100x, but after that battery usage drops to 0, and research keeps happening, event though the batteries should be long dead. when I slow it to 100x, batteries drain as normal and I go dark until the sun comes back, but if I turn warp up fast enough, it doesn't use any power.


its a 'feature'. Same thing happens if you are away from the craft. Eg you're on the mun and about to go into nighttime. If you go back to the space centre, that craft on the mun will not consume any electricity. I was previously worried for a similar science lab, but whenever I visited it never seemed to be out of power.
 

r1chard

Member
Holy crap, I go away on vacation and everything pops off. I did not see this one coming at all. KSP will be released on PS4! Wow.

Yep, and the whining from the "but it's not an announcement about ME" from the current players is astounding.


In other news, I landed my first multi-part mission to Duna successfully* yesterday. I'll post an album when they get home, but it consists of three launches: a science base, a rover and a bus to bring everyone home again (two scientists, a pilot and an engineer to repack the chutes after the bus landed on Duna). Got all of them landed within 2.5km of each other, which is a PB for any sort of landing :)

The science module produced something like 1000 science just on the trip to Duna. I reckon this trip alone is going to unlock the entire rest of the tree, without requiring me to even return the science to Kerbin.

I'm not sure that's a good thing...




* yeah, so the bus was in orbit around Duna and then I detached it from its "tug" (also refuelling module for the return to Kerbin) when I realised that a last-minute tweak had somehow scrubbed the fuel lines from all but one of the four engine modules, making the damn thing useless. I sent a replacement bus out, but did cheat and hyper-edited it out there (I know I could have done the multi-year thing and actually flown it out, no issue - but it was really late and I was rather ragey at [the game][myself] at the time). I should uninstall hyperedit while I'm not actively testing out designs. I wish I could somehow disable some that mod in for Career mode...
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
Holy crap, I go away on vacation and everything pops off. I did not see this one coming at all. KSP will be released on PS4! Wow.

What!? Need to read uo but unless it has mod support I'm not sure I'm interested. Although if it means better controller support coming for the PC version that'd be a good thing.
 

r1chard

Member
Finally got an SSTO up into orbit and docked with a station (for refuelling, but also I needed the pilot up there for a bit to move some bits of the station around).


(the station is a bit of a mess, and is a few career missions all smooshed together - it has been rearranged since this snapshot to be slightly more visually appealing ;-)
 
Hey guys,
I've just both the game and done some looking around here and reddit.
Is there a recommend list of mods for the current version (1.0.2?)?
 

r1chard

Member
Whee! Just landed my first Duna expedition back home at Kerbin. Three craft sent - a science base, a rover and a bus to bring everyone home. Completed five contracts during the almost 4 years of the mission (several for landing / science on Duna and two "race" missions that needed flybys of Dune/Ike/Mun/Minmus). All up about 5000 science (2500 transmitted from or in transit *to* Duna) and almost K$3mil :)

The return trip, needing the Mun/Minmus flybys, was fun, but I couldn't imagine doing it without Precise Node!


Hey guys,
I've just both the game and done some looking around here and reddit.
Is there a recommend list of mods for the current version (1.0.2?)?
Precise Node and Kerbal Engineer to take a lot of the guesswork out of the game.

You'll want Kerbal Alarm Clock and Protractor when you start going outside of Kerbin's SOI.

Non-essentials I've got installed: Chatterer (adds those missing sound fx which greatly improve the game), Hyperedit (for simulating missions - testing landers and that sort of thing), Navball docking alignment indicator, Planetshine, HotRockets, ... :)
 
Precise Node and Kerbal Engineer to take a lot of the guesswork out of the game.

You'll want Kerbal Alarm Clock and Protractor when you start going outside of Kerbin's SOI.

Non-essentials I've got installed: Chatterer (adds those missing sound fx which greatly improve the game), Hyperedit (for simulating missions - testing landers and that sort of thing), Navball docking alignment indicator, Planetshine, HotRockets, ... :)
Perfect, thanks!
 

r1chard

Member
I've just started a new career game with a stack of extra mods installed, notably ones that add new interesting career contracts (Contract Pack) and one that adds contracts to build a base over time (not the new-base-every-time craziness of the built in contracts).

If you're interested, my CKAN mod list.

The big one is RasterPropMonitor and Vessel Viewer. I just did the first orbit contract in the new career entirely IVA. It's a pretty awesome way to play the game! I'm pretty sure Hullcam integrates with RPM and I know one of the two docking port alignment mods does, so I'm going to see how I go just using IVA :)

Edit: major instability since I installed a bunch of these mods. A crash every half hour or so :/ I've removed contract window plus, capcom, scatterer, contract reward modifier (which snuck in somehow and feels way cheaty), intake build aid, waypoint manager... and I guess I'll be removing more soon :/


Edit 2: with the above mods removed things seem way more stable. I've also installed the Temperature Gauge Killer mod and Active Texture Management (Basic) which seem to have helped.
 

r1chard

Member
So the new Contract Pack stuff is fun, but I've discovered that including RemoteTech makes them really very challenging indeed. Just having RemoteTech in a regular career game would be difficult enough...
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
I wish there was a way to move some of the tool palettes onto a second monitor. Telemachus is ok but only really useful for readouts, not detailed controls.
 

DBT85

Member
So the new Contract Pack stuff is fun, but I've discovered that including RemoteTech makes them really very challenging indeed. Just having RemoteTech in a regular career game would be difficult enough...

Yes indeed remote tech can make things far more complicated.

There is a contract pack for Remote Tech that will help a bit in paying for it all.

Also please try out my SCANSat pack!
 

r1chard

Member
Yes indeed remote tech can make things far more complicated.

There is a contract pack for Remote Tech that will help a bit in paying for it all.

Also please try out my SCANSat pack!

I have both installed (I have *all* of the contract packs installed) and the ultimate combination of them makes the game *very* challenging indeed. I just* put up my first three-satellite comms network using only (some limited) T4 techs so I could finally try to send a probe to the Mun to complete some of those missions. I did the first SCANsat mission which seems a little ... buggy?**, but was still fun.

I've had one of the extended missions bug out on me - sending a tourist into orbit. It was all green, and I'm *pretty sure* I got the reward, but it's staying in my contracts list... (and I still have the limit of 7...)

The Comms mission I'm attempting is pretty cool tho - provide comms coverage for Mun or Minmus. I need it anyway, since I'm trying to send a probe there for science (and money)!

* it took me all bloody night, actually, to get three almost-capable*** satellites out to a somewhat-similar**** orbit so they can cover launches from KSC and the Mun or Minmus.
** I launched the satellite just fine, but then I noticed that the map wasn't updating when the satellite was out of comms. But switching away and time warping it updates just fine :/
*** I only have the very basic solar panels, so they only just generate enough power to keep three antenna operational, so one for KSC, one for the ring and one for Mun or Minmus. The fourth is useless because apparently I can't add up power usage ;)
**** Money is *very* tight, so I've not unlocked any levels in the tracking station yet, so no conics or maneuver nodes for me!
 

DBT85

Member
I have both installed (I have *all* of the contract packs installed) and the ultimate combination of them makes the game *very* challenging indeed. I just* put up my first three-satellite comms network using only (some limited) T4 techs so I could finally try to send a probe to the Mun to complete some of those missions. I did the first SCANsat mission which seems a little ... buggy?**, but was still fun.

I've had one of the extended missions bug out on me - sending a tourist into orbit. It was all green, and I'm *pretty sure* I got the reward, but it's staying in my contracts list... (and I still have the limit of 7...)

The Comms mission I'm attempting is pretty cool tho - provide comms coverage for Mun or Minmus. I need it anyway, since I'm trying to send a probe there for science (and money)!

* it took me all bloody night, actually, to get three almost-capable*** satellites out to a somewhat-similar**** orbit so they can cover launches from KSC and the Mun or Minmus.
** I launched the satellite just fine, but then I noticed that the map wasn't updating when the satellite was out of comms. But switching away and time warping it updates just fine :/
*** I only have the very basic solar panels, so they only just generate enough power to keep three antenna operational, so one for KSC, one for the ring and one for Mun or Minmus. The fourth is useless because apparently I can't add up power usage ;)
**** Money is *very* tight, so I've not unlocked any levels in the tracking station yet, so no conics or maneuver nodes for me!


Ah ok, I'll have a look at that one. Though it sounds like its doing what it should with remote tech installed. If its not got comms with KSC then it won't scan. I'll double check though.
 

r1chard

Member
Ah ok, I'll have a look at that one. Though it sounds like its doing what it should with remote tech installed. If its not got comms with KSC then it won't scan. I'll double check though.
... and I ended up giving up on RemoteTech, at least in career mode and I'm so new to it. I just couldn't get it to work - I finally got to the point where I could send a probe to the Mun (still only had level 1 tracking ugh thanks to all the money I had to sink into the comms network) and then for some reason the comms network just stopped working reliably. No idea why :( so I've disabled that mod until some other time, probably not career mode, to try and play with it. In "reality" you'd have several tracking stations across Kerbin able to communicate with probes. You wouldn't need to set up a goddamn communications satellite network *as the first thing you do in the game*.
 
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