• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

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

Quote

Member
I don't feel great about their progress in the episode but it looks like they might get back on track next episode.
 

Yep! Hehe. I think they are just trying to down play it though. I hope he dropped some knowledge on them. It would be funny to see their reaction to some of the things they have had misconceptions about. The reason I suggested it was the coincidence of their two tweets around the same time, and the fact Scott already tweeted at them after the rendezvous ep.

Regardless, I can't wait for the next BEAST episode and Scott Manley is a great KSP personality.
 

Orbis

Member
Yeah, I still can't dock. Managed it once but it was clearly just a fluke. Need to watch more YouTube videos I guess.
Is it docking or rendezvous that you have trouble with? For docking there are a few solutions I recommend:

1. (easy) Point both ships directly at each other. You then literally only need to use forward/backward RCS to dock. Looks a bit silly to rotate your space station every time though. And with bigger stations it's hard.
2. (medium) Align both ships to the same axis. Point them both on the North/South for example and then you can use RCS left/right/up/down to dock, no rotation required. This comes across as less 'cheaty' or unrealistic as #1 as you can just leave your space station aligned N/S or E/W rather than rotating it every time you dock a new ship.
3. (medium-hard) Install docking port alignment mod. You can basically dock without even looking, just learn what each indicator means and you'll eventually find it a breeze. Correct rotation, correct roll, then correct up/down/left/right. All good? Then start moving forward. If it drifts out of alignment, stop, then rinse and repeat.

I think a good autopilot/assist for them to include in stock would be a 'kill relative speed' option which would use RCS to stop you dead in your tracks, which would make docking much easier for newer players. I found that the hardest bit, just losing track of how quickly left/right/up/down I was going. We already have a 'kill rotation'.
 

danthefan

Member
Is it docking or rendezvous that you have trouble with? For docking there are a few solutions I recommend:

1. (easy) Point both ships directly at each other. You then literally only need to use forward/backward RCS to dock. Looks a bit silly to rotate your space station every time though. And with bigger stations it's hard.
2. (medium) Align both ships to the same axis. Point them both on the North/South for example and then you can use RCS left/right/up/down to dock, no rotation required. This comes across as less 'cheaty' or unrealistic as #1 as you can just leave your space station aligned N/S or E/W rather than rotating it every time you dock a new ship.
3. (medium-hard) Install docking port alignment mod. You can basically dock without even looking, just learn what each indicator means and you'll eventually find it a breeze. Correct rotation, correct roll, then correct up/down/left/right. All good? Then start moving forward. If it drifts out of alignment, stop, then rinse and repeat.

I think a good autopilot/assist for them to include in stock would be a 'kill relative speed' option which would use RCS to stop you dead in your tracks, which would make docking much easier for newer players. I found that the hardest bit, just losing track of how quickly left/right/up/down I was going. We already have a 'kill rotation'.


Thanks for all this, just after posting I did manage it again. I was doing the tutorial mission on docking, one of the difficulties I had was just getting close to the target with a low relative speed.

Then it took me ages to actually line up the docking ports because you don't have any control of the second ship but again got it eventually. I think it's just going to be a case of practice. I think point 2 you've mentioned above is what I need to get better at.

Edit - got it again there immediately after, so that's twice in a row. Did as you suggested in point 2, set myself on a North/South axis and just used i,j,k,l to maneuver and get directly above the target, then a bit of RCS straight down to dock. I still have difficulty know exactly what direction each key is going to move me in, I suspect learning to read the navball better will solve that.
 
I think it is easier to learn to use the RCS key bindings instead of switching the controls over to docking controls. This way you can still use WASD to pitch and roll your craft into alignment while still RCS thrusting with IJKLHN keys. Just realize IJKL is setup the same way as WASD and H is thrust forward and N is backward. It will become second nature. Remembering H as RCS thrust forward is very helpful for landings or fine tuning of the last bits of delta V in a planned maneuver. You can give yours self a little prograde RCS thrust by hitting H key right as you touch down, for extra soft landings since it is harder to modulate the engine thrust.

Also don't forget that hitting caps lock key turns on fine controls. This allows for much smaller movements across the board when getting close for docking.

pQp42lm.png
 

Jintor

Member
friends

after my first stage seperation at around i dunno 10km high or so when it separates my rocket stability goes completely gonzo, i assume because center of mass changes completely. Any tips? Or just on general rocket design? I'm losing massive efficiency because all my orbital flights have to do this bloody cartwheel in midair following first stage seperation
 

Brashnir

Member
friends

after my first stage seperation at around i dunno 10km high or so when it separates my rocket stability goes completely gonzo, i assume because center of mass changes completely. Any tips? Or just on general rocket design? I'm losing massive efficiency because all my orbital flights have to do this bloody cartwheel in midair following first stage seperation

You're still in atmosphere at 10k, so depending on the shape of your ship, adding fins to the ass-end of the stage is an option. The other option is adding more thrust to your previous stage to ensure you're higher when you switch to this stage. It's hard to say without seeing your rocket.
 

Samaritan

Member
The Project B.E.A.S.T. videos have gotten me interested in KSP again after having not played it since almost two years ago now. The game is now extraordinarily more complex and I very much am in need of some in-depth tutorial videos from the current version of the game.

I did stumble upon Scott Manley's 1.0 launching tutorial video, which helped immensely with dealing with the new aero model. But most of his other tutorial videos are from much older versions of the game and are, at least seemingly, less useful because of it.

Can any of you fine gentlekerbals point me in the direction of some more up-to-date videos on rocket design, landing, and intersystem travel.
 

Jintor

Member
You're still in atmosphere at 10k, so depending on the shape of your ship, adding fins to the ass-end of the stage is an option. The other option is adding more thrust to your previous stage to ensure you're higher when you switch to this stage. It's hard to say without seeing your rocket.

added some fins, seemed to work. Now my problem is I can't reliably get to orbit with my second stage boosters, but I think part of that is me not knowing what angles to take...
 

fleck0

Member
added some fins, seemed to work. Now my problem is I can't reliably get to orbit with my second stage boosters, but I think part of that is me not knowing what angles to take...

head East / 90-deg very slightly after take off if you want to line up with the Mun. I spent a looooot of time with This Guide today to attempt really effecient takeoffs
 

Jintor

Member
head East / 90-deg very slightly after take off if you want to line up with the Mun. I spent a looooot of time with This Guide today to attempt really effecient takeoffs

thanks. I'm still very inefficient (just barely made it to buzz Mun and back with 10 gas remaining on re-entry) but I can at least make it to orbit without flipping my bird over three times now.

Gotta work on efficiency...
 

Rflagg

Member
I just realized I hadn't subbed to this thread yet. I love this game even though it makes me feel like a complete idiot, this time I will learn the correct way to play it.
 
I had some classic KSP moments last night playing career. First was I ran out of battery while doing Mun recon contracts. So I had to burn for any control and that made my maneuvers sloppy but manageable. Second mission was a rescue mission in orbit around the Mun and I wasted too much fuel with my plane changes and rendevous so I ended up with a 700Km Pe. Luckily my Ap was crazy high so I could move my Pe with the good ol' get out and push KSP technique. It took a few full tanks of jet pack but I got my Pe down to 30Km and made it back safe.

Launches and re-entries are just so much better now. You actually have to be precise.

head East / 90-deg very slightly after take off if you want to line up with the Mun. I spent a looooot of time with This Guide today to attempt really effecient takeoffs

Great link. Really helpful guide for good launch profiles post 1.0. I still have some old habits that get me in to lots of trouble.
 

Jintor

Member
vinny attempts to
brute force his way out of kerbal's gravity pull without bothering to enter orbit.

...granted it's mostly because he already scrubbed the mission, but still
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
How the hell..


Edit: argh.. let's just fly up and then turn, definitely the best way to get to orbit with low fuel.
 
They are making pretty good progress on the parking orbit, they'll just need to redesign the ship to make a better gravity turn. The orbital insert burn just takes way too long now. (would help to turn on that center engine)

Munshot Check Fuel Line got a gravity assist to an even shittier orbit, Scott Manley will have his hands full
 
They aren't even using
the solar panels they'd have so much more dV without em on

That scream after the fade to logo in the next episode sneak peak D:
 
Seems like they are in that KSP phase of getting some new info without fully understanding it, which makes you almost worse off than before you knew the new info. I think the feedback loop of the posting of the videos with a few episodes banked, then going back and seeing comments on missions they did weeks ago is causing them to cross the streams on some of the advice Vinny has apparently been reading. Also, some of the comments on the videos are wrong.

Nothing made me cringe more than hearing them call the Terrier engine, "the shitty one" The absolute best engine for their craft size in vacuum, yet they are convinced it is the worst one. Vinny almost realized it when he saw how little fuel during that one maneuver. They are still making progress though. The orbital plane adjustment was an important break through that he looked up or read in the comments since last ep. People thinking that Vinny is just figuring this all out on his own and that by never reading comments or tutorials the videos would be better are delusional. Them being taught new things in between eps is allowing them to keep moving forward. It would be brutally boring trial and error if they were playing blind. KSP will catch you off guard and throw new challenges at you no matter how much of an expert you are. I really hope they got some help from Scott Manley. It is going to kick this video series into overdrive

Another great ep overall. Keep up the good work BEAST and don't shy away from reading comments and looking up tutorials. There is still so much more KSP to experience.
 

Jintor

Member
low-tier orbital rendevouz is kicking my ass. I'm basically matching orbits and I can get within 30-100km of the target but I can't figure out how to match relative velocities. I thought it'd just be a matter of pointing retrograde to target and feathering the thruster until it hits 0 but around 1-2m/s the retrograde marker completely bugs out and I start increasing relative velocity instead of decreasing for some reason.

obviously there's some physics i'm just not wrapping my head around, but i'm very frustrated right now.

(it's not helping that I forgot once again to add a torque circular thing or a bunch of monoprop to my probes)
 

Crispy75

Member
low-tier orbital rendevouz is kicking my ass. I'm basically matching orbits and I can get within 30-100km of the target but I can't figure out how to match relative velocities. I thought it'd just be a matter of pointing retrograde to target and feathering the thruster until it hits 0 but around 1-2m/s the retrograde marker completely bugs out and I start increasing relative velocity instead of decreasing for some reason.

obviously there's some physics i'm just not wrapping my head around, but i'm very frustrated right now.

(it's not helping that I forgot once again to add a torque circular thing or a bunch of monoprop to my probes)

Within a couple of m/s is fine for matching velocities, but 30-100km is too far away for rendezvous. At that distance you can't just point at the target and thrust - you'll end up drifting as your orbits diverge. You want to get within a few km for your initial intercept - less than 1,000m is possible, and only then match velocities and approach.
 

Jintor

Member
OK... So how do I do that? Or perhaps to put it more specifically, what's the best way to set up my orbit to get the closest intercept?
 

Crispy75

Member
OK... So how do I do that? Or perhaps to put it more specifically, what's the best way to set up my orbit to get the closest intercept?

If you're "behind" the target, be in a lower orbit. If you're "ahead", be in a higher one. This will allow you to catch up, or drop back until at some point in the near future the two orbits will be in sync, with your craft and the target being at the same longitude, but different altitudes.

Half an orbit *before* this happens is when you want to make a burn that brings your orbit to meet the target orbit. If you plan this with a manoeuvre node and execute the burn accurately, you can get very close indeed.

UEDrrGW.png


(you might need to slide the node forward/backward along your orbit to get a good rendezvous)

Match velocities at closest approach and then creep in on RCS
 
1. Get in an orbit in the same plane as your target.

2. Match either your periapsis or apoapsis so it's on top of the target's orbit.

3. Now your orbit should have a periapsis/apoapsis that's located within your target's orbit, and an apoapsis/periapsis that's beyond/beneath the target's orbit.

4. Wait a few revolutions (fewer while more eccentric your orbit is, asuming a target's orbit that's circular) until you're close enough to your target (1 km - 2 km).

5. Kill relative velocity to your target until it's 0 m/s.

6. Accelerate slowly pointing directly towards your target. Be careful on this step.

7. Kill your relative velocity again when you're at 100 - 200 m away from your target.

8. Position your ship relative to the target so that the docking devices are more or less facing each other, also rotate your ship the way you want it to dock to the target.

9. Move slowly towards your target's docking port, using RCS.

10. They're like magnets, when you're close enough the docking ports will just pull both ships.

11. There will be a transition and the focus will change, congrats, you've docked.
 
Remember that when you are killing off your relative velocity, even with your target set, you still want to burn retrograde to the normal yellow retrograde marker, not the pink target retro marker. However, once you have killed off speed, you do burn prograde at the pink prograde target marker. You will want to see your yellow normal prograde marker right on top of your pink target prograde marker. This means you are heading straight at your target.

For tweaking the initial rendezvous distance, don't forget about the wheel mouse. Slowly wheel mousing on top of maneuver node handles allows for fine tuning. Speaking of fine tuning, turning on caps locks as you get closer to docking also helps. This turns on fine tune controls for all control inputs in KSP. You can make much smaller RCS adjustments with caps lock on.
 

Jintor

Member
Well I managed to get my relative velocity to 0 but the damned contract won't complete. Probably still too far out (about 3km). Still, learned a lot.
 

Crispy75

Member
Well I managed to get my relative velocity to 0 but the damned contract won't complete. Probably still too far out (about 3km). Still, learned a lot.

3km is close enough to perform the final rendezvous. Once your relative velocity is close to zero, just point your craft at the target and approach at ~20m/s or so. If you've got RCS, you can use IJKL keys to nudge your velocity vector around on the navball so it's always in line with the target.
 

Jintor

Member
3km is close enough to perform the final rendezvous. Once your relative velocity is close to zero, just point your craft at the target and approach at ~20m/s or so. If you've got RCS, you can use IJKL keys to nudge your velocity vector around on the navball so it's always in line with the target.

Hit bingo fuel though and the contract was just for killing relative velocity, so I didn't actually have any docks on the suckers.
 
Threw a probe around Duna last night in career mode. First time back to Duna in ages. Forgot how much cooler it is doing interplanetary transfers than just Mun and Minmus. I forgot to install RCS though so my maneuvers were so wonky because my probe core didn't have the torque to rotate my ship. So I had to thurst limit down to 5.5, just to burn a little bit to rotate my craft to the maneuver marker, then once it lined up, burn proper, and turn the thrust limit back up. I should have just reverted and added RCS but I got that son of a bitch to Duna. Now for some manned missions!

KSP Pro Tip - When you begin to warp at anything above normal speed, what ever rotation your craft had prior to warp stops dead (your craft will still roll with gravity while orbiting a planet/moon though) What this allows you to do is conserve RCS or electricity by essentially slamming on an rmomentum e-brake by just warping briefly. So if you need to quickly get to your maneuver marker (the blue one) on your nav ball, you can push your rotation really hard. Typically all of that momentum would cause you to over shoot your marker, and use even more RCS to get back in line. However, if you tap warp right as your nav ball lines up with the marker, it will stop dead. Tl;dr for a rotational e-brake, just tap warp up and then quickly back down to normal and it will kill off all rotational momentum. This can be really handy with large ship that require a lot of RCS energy to rotate.
 

Jintor

Member
What's a potent mod cocktail I can download that won't completely wreck my machine?

I'd love nightlights and stuff on Kerbin but if it comes at a huge performance/stability expense I won't be into that. I guess I'm asking for mainly info mods, since I'm still feeling out stock Kerbal?

Apologies if it's been asked before.
 
Ahhh, finally unlocked the fairings in my career mode. Love making little clean satellite launchers. Nothing like a single SRB to get you out of the atmosphere. Thrust limiting was such a great addtion to the game. Don't know how we played it before it.

Had a mission to make a Minmus base. Packed it into this wonky looking thing.
Fairings gone, base
Got to Minmus no problem, now generating some science.

Not the most amazing career mission but I am crusing along. I need to unlock some rover parts so I can send some to Duna.
 
I had a satellite in a specific orbit contract, but the target orbit was way out past Jool. Not a big deal, but as a result I had to warp several years to complete it. Luckily only two minor contracts expired in that time. However, once I completed the mission, I figured I would check my Minmus Base science station pictured in my previous post. Of course it was completely full up on science, ohhh yeah 500 science to transmit back home. I click transmit....out of battery when only ~30% complete. Fuuuuck. There is no way I can beam back all that sweet sweet science without more battery capacity. Luckily, part of my Minmus base contract required a docking port, which I placed at the tippy top of my base. No problem I thought. I will just build a battery pack "hat", with a docking port on the bottom, fly that shit to Minmus and land her on top of my base. For whatever reason, I forgot to add RCS to my flying power hat, so I only had regular throttle to perform this maneuver. Can't be that bad right?

Dear lord, it was so nuts. It was by far the most challenging piloting skill I have ever done in this game. I didn't have advanced SAS either, so it was only stability control and the rest was purely manual. I should have just left it on Minmus or in orbit and launched a second craft with RCS. In the long run, I was happy I didn't because it felt amazing when I finally landed that puppy on top of my Minmus base. Plenty of battery power now, and I was able to transmit back over 1,000 science already with it. Such an awesome KSP moment.

Comin hot. No way I was going to be able to go straight from orbit to a perfect docking hover without RCS. So I got close to the base then landed.

I had to drop my thrust limiter down to 5.5 on all four engines to have a finer control throttle where I could find the hover point. Slowly took off and inched toward my base.


After miss after miss, I finally got that son of a bitch on there. Power hat is go!!!
So majestic. I now have a Burning Man art installation / functional science lab on Minmus.
 
I figured I would check my Minmus Base science station pictured in my previous post. Of course it was completely full up on science, ohhh yeah 500 science to transmit back home. I click transmit....out of battery when only ~30% complete. Fuuuuck. There is no way I can beam back all that sweet sweet science without more battery capacity.

Actually, if you click on the antenna, there's an option for "Transmit Partial" or whatever and it'll transmit until the battery dies, then continue as the you generate more electricity. There's some warning about "data integrity" but I'm not sure if that actually causes any issues.
 
Actually, if you click on the antenna, there's an option for "Transmit Partial" or whatever and it'll transmit until the battery dies, then continue as the you generate more electricity. There's some warning about "data integrity" but I'm not sure if that actually causes any issues.

Hahaha, I had no idea. Well, this way was much more Kerbal. I wonder if you just lose a percent of total science when not doing full transmission.
 

Jintor

Member
so uh

i uh

stranded 3 kerbels on the mun

the extra weight of the passenger pods for rescuing the first one destroyed my fuel efficiency... and the extra weight of the extra passenger pod for rescuing those two even more destroyed my fuel efficiency...

the first ship landed sideways with no way to right itself. The second ship ran out of fuel before it could take off again, though it landed quite nicely. Ship number three ran out of fuel while landing, hit the ground at 60m/s, throwing my brave kerbalnaut through the air where she hoofed it over to the actually landed spaceship.

mission control has not had a good day
 
So apparently, Scott Manley accidentally showed his YouTube stream key in one of his live streams. Someone took over his channel for a short time so it wouldn't be taken over by someone more nefarious. Looks like he just took it back over.
 
so uh

i uh

stranded 3 kerbels on the mun

the extra weight of the passenger pods for rescuing the first one destroyed my fuel efficiency... and the extra weight of the extra passenger pod for rescuing those two even more destroyed my fuel efficiency...

the first ship landed sideways with no way to right itself. The second ship ran out of fuel before it could take off again, though it landed quite nicely. Ship number three ran out of fuel while landing, hit the ground at 60m/s, throwing my brave kerbalnaut through the air where she hoofed it over to the actually landed spaceship.

mission control has not had a good day

Rescue mission escalation is great. It reminds me of how I learned computers as a kid. It wasn't until everything started going wrong that I figured out how to do them right.

Have you tried an Apollo style lander for the rescue missions yet, where you keep the return vessel orbiting the Mun and then just send down a small lander craft to pick up your guys. The rendevous and docking adds some extra complexity but it is an easy way to keep assure your return vehicle had plenty of fuel.
 
Top Bottom