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[Mengy]

I've really been jonesing to play some KSP for some time now but I keep putting it off to wait until 1.1 hits. I watched that PBS special "A Year in Space" about astronaut Scott Kelley on the space station and all it made me want to do is build huge space stations in KSP. Then I watched The Martian, followed by Gravity, and then Apollo 13 over the course of a week and now my urge to play KSP is painful!

I think I might just give in and stop waiting, even though I know it won't be long now....

 

[runningjoke]

Public beta for 1.1 is soon*. I'd guess actual release is at least another month away, probably 2.

Don't wait for it, just start playing.

 

[CypherSignal]

I've really been jonesing to play some KSP for some time now but I keep putting it off to wait until 1.1 hits. I watched that PBS special "A Year in Space" about astronaut Scott Kelley on the space station and all it made me want to do is build huge space stations in KSP. Then I watched The Martian, followed by Gravity, and then Apollo 13 over the course of a week and now my urge to play KSP is painful!

I think I might just give in and stop waiting, even though I know it won't be long now....

You can put off KSP a bit more by also watching The Right Stuff and From the Earth to the Moon.

 

[ThreePiMatt]

Kerbal: Project B.E.A.S.T - Part 12

http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/kerbal-project-beast-part-12/2300-11043/

Man this is infuriating. They need to learn the translation controls so bad.

 

[Mengy]

You can put off KSP a bit more by also watching The Right Stuff and From the Earth to the Moon.

I own both of those, so I could......

 

[MadYarpen]

I need to get back to it too. Explore jool contract looks like fun...

 

[runningjoke]

Man this is infuriating. They need to learn the translation controls so bad.

He was putting the prograde vector on top of his target indicator last time, why did he forget 😫

Ok they remembered. Now just use RCS only if within 1KM.

 

[fallout]

You can put off KSP a bit more by also watching The Right Stuff and From the Earth to the Moon.

I'd also throw in Apollo 13 and In the Shadow of the Moon.

 

[CypherSignal]

I'd also throw in Apollo 13 and In the Shadow of the Moon.

Watch Apollo 13 twice? Now that's a plan I can get behind.

He was putting the prograde vector on top of his target indicator last time, why did he forget ��

They seem to accidentally have gotten it in their heads that the prograde/retrograde indicators on the navball when in Target mode are the target's pro/retro, and not based on your ship's current velocity relative to target. Admittedly, while it's easy to say "do manuever that gets sub 5-klick intercept. warp to intercept. point to target retrograde. zero velocity. point to target. get some velocity until sub-50m. zero velocity. tweak. line up. dock" that initial bit of mental gymnastics of spinning and juggling the different reference frames around in my head while I was learning that wasn't exactly the most trivial of things.

 

[fallout]

Watch Apollo 13 twice? Now that's a plan I can get behind.

Haha, damnit I missed that in there. I also tend to group those 4 together (The Right Stuff, From the Earth to the Moon, Apollo 13 and In the Shadow of the Moon) because they work together so well and don't retread any of the same material.

 

[MadYarpen]

Watch Apollo 13 twice? Now that's a plan I can get behind.


They seem to accidentally have gotten it in their heads that the prograde/retrograde indicators on the navball when in Target mode are the target's pro/retro, and not based on your ship's current velocity relative to target. Admittedly, while it's easy to say "do manuever that gets sub 5-klick intercept. warp to intercept. point to target retrograde. zero velocity. point to target. get some velocity until sub-50m. zero velocity. tweak. line up. dock" that initial bit of mental gymnastics of spinning and juggling the different reference frames around in my head while I was learning that wasn't exactly the most trivial of things.

haha yeah it is not easy, but it is nice when you manage to do it, isn't it?

For me, when I am close to target, it is actually easier to dock almost without looking at the navball, it's easier to judge relative speed and direction I should accelerate to by looking at the target. and when I am really close I click "target" on the navball controls and it all goes nicely from there.

 

[Mengy]

I'd also throw in Apollo 13 and In the Shadow of the Moon.

I've actually never seen In the Shadow of the Moon. I just looked it up, it's a documentary about the Apollo program? I may have to give that a watch....

 

[Genryu]

Kerbal: Project B.E.A.S.T - Part 12

http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/kerbal-project-beast-part-12/2300-11043/

I had to fast forward through the longest parallel park job because I couldn't handle it.

 

[MacGurcules]

I had to fast forward through the longest parallel park job because I couldn't handle it.

Holy crap. I spent like thirty minutes shouting at them going, "Guys! It's forty meters away. Just get out!"

 

[runningjoke]

Kerbal: Project B.E.A.S.T - Part 13 Building the ship to surpass Kerbin orbit

 

[ThreePiMatt]

Kerbal: Project B.E.A.S.T - Part 13 Building the ship to surpass Kerbin orbit

Haven't started watching, but I got a feeling that it'll end up having enough dV to visit ever planet in the Kerbol system.

 

[MrTroubleMaker]

Kerbal: Project B.E.A.S.T - Part 13 Building the ship to surpass Kerbin orbit

lol Vinny is a mad man!

 

[Brashnir]

Kerbal: Project B.E.A.S.T - Part 13 Building the ship to surpass Kerbin orbit

They forgot the solar panels for the ion stage. Given their usual rate of fuel efficiency, it will be fun when that one finally jumps up to bite them in the ass.

 

[Lonestar]

Finally got around to figuring out how to do Docking in space. I've now built some sort of cheap space station/built in space multi rocket/Fuel Depot.

And its near 4 am. Great

 

[r1chard]

Scott Manley's 1.1 preview is up. I was going to give it a break for a while longer, but I reckon the performance improvements alone will suck me back in.... just as soon as all the mods I love are updated ;-)

 

[runningjoke]

Kerbal: Project B.E.A.S.T - Part 14

They had a pretty good encounter on next orbit, and Vinny is like "Let's match apoapses" and messed it all up

 

[MadYarpen]

Well i think I'll stop with career mode and try sandbox. I have almost all tech tree unlocked, space center fully upgraded and I'm starting to find the lack of money frustrating. I have some ideas but in career all you can do are contracts with quite minimalistic approach. Otherwise one launch would ruin my budget.... Like the contract explore eve. I sent two probes, all fun, I liked the design but overall I did not earn to much cause two (not so small) probes required quite expensive ship obviously.

This weekend I managed to put a probe in Jool's orbit and brought an asteroid to Kerbin's orbit (I thought this was my contract, turns out it was bring an asteroid to Jool's orbit lol). There are of course some interesting contracts... But I feel that's it, I'll try to rescue jebediah from kerbol's orbit to finish things there (BTW do you guys know if you can transfer fuel through the grabbing arm?).

are there contracts in sandbox mode? Even if not, I have some nice ideas for missions so I should be fine on my own....

 

[runningjoke]

are there contracts in sandbox mode? Even if not, I have some nice ideas for missions so I should be fine on my own....

There's not but it is something I'd like. I don't really like collecting science or managing budgets but I do want goals to work towards

 

[Mengy]

There's not but it is something I'd like. I don't really like collecting science or managing budgets but I do want goals to work towards

I'll be honest, what I did was start a career on normal but ramped up the money income and such. I like having the missions, tech tree, and money aspect to the game, but I didn't want to overly punish myself for experimenting and failing. Sandbox mode is fun for trying things out but I like a little more game in my KSP than pure sandbox brings.

 

[AcAnchoa]

I've been tinkering with kOS (the scriptable autopilot mod for those unfamiliar with it) and I finally have a kind of reliable "easy to adapt " script fot launches, at least for the rockets I've tested it with so far. I also had a small collection of scripts from last april which were a total mess so I decided to rewrite them from scratch and now they are much more cleaner and finally work as intended.

There's not but it is something I'd like. I don't really like collecting science or managing budgets but I do want goals to work towards

You can always play career mode and edit the savefile to get extra science points and money. I guess it's cheating, but being a single player game and with no better option for the kind of play style that you seem to be looking for I wouldn't give it much thought.

 

[ThreePiMatt]

A surprisingly not infuriating episode of BEAST. But then again, I was also playing a game while only half paying attention. It sounds like they might have actually set themselves up for success.

 

[MadYarpen]

You can always play career mode and edit the savefile to get extra science points and money. I guess it's cheating, but being a single player game and with no better option for the kind of play style that you seem to be looking for I wouldn't give it much thought.

I did not think about it, sounds exactly like what I need.

 

[MrTroubleMaker]

Kerbal: Project B.E.A.S.T - Part 14

They had a pretty good encounter on next orbit, and Vinny is like "Let's match apoapses" and messed it all up

This is so stressful, and the next episode looks to be even more.

 

[jotun?]

The 1.1 pre-release is available on Steam now

not really recommended unless you are actually interested in reporting bugs

 

[ThreePiMatt]

Dabbled for about a half hour before work. Launched a couple 200+ part trash heap ships with no slowdown. Drove around a big Mun Rover and confirmed the driving controls were much better, actually drove up a hill I couldn't get up in 1.05.

Good stuff so far. Will probably play more this evening.

 

[Vlad]

Scott Manley's 1.1 preview is up. I was going to give it a break for a while longer, but I reckon the performance improvements alone will suck me back in.... just as soon as all the mods I love are updated ;-)

I think what's really going to be useful is the in-game help, which is an area that I've found that the game is still really lacking in.

After several false starts over the past few years, I finally sat down and really started playing the game, and there's just some stuff that could use a little more clarification.

Like, is it even possible to make a working spaceplane from the parts in the initial aerodynamics node? The engine that you unlock with that node seems really small, and no matter what configuration of pieces I slap together, I can't even get anything off the ground.

 

[ThreePiMatt]

Early spaceplanes are possible, but I think they require some in-flight cutover to air breathing engines to LOx rocket engines. I don't really bother with planes much, so I'm not 100%.

 

[Vlad]

Early spaceplanes are possible, but I think they require some in-flight cutover to air breathing engines to LOx rocket engines. I don't really bother with planes much, so I'm not 100%.

I'm not talking even a "spaceplane" per se, just a "plane that can actually get off the ground". I've looked at a few Scott Manley videos on basic aerodynamics, and while he uses more advanced parts, I'm still following the basic rules with regards to center of lift vs center of mass, but no go.

 

[jotun?]

I'm not talking even a "spaceplane" per se, just a "plane that can actually get off the ground". I've looked at a few Scott Manley videos on basic aerodynamics, and while he uses more advanced parts, I'm still following the basic rules with regards to center of lift vs center of mass, but no go.

Here's one I threw together using only parts from the first Aviation research node:

It could use a bit of tweaking to make it more controllable/landable, but it flies

One important thing to note is that I have the two large fuselage sections empty, no fuel. Jet engines are super efficient and can go very far on very little fuel, so you can keep things simple by keeping them light.

One thing that I did wrong here was I put the rear landing gear too far back, which makes it difficult to take off. Ideally you want that pivot point to be not too far behind your center of mass



edit: Basic Biplane design that's a lot easier to fly:

I literally just did a google image search for biplane and copied what came up, aside from using the dual engine nacelles instead of a propeller


If you can post pictures or the craft file of a plane you're having trouble with, I can try to help with it

 

[Vlad]

Here's one I threw together using only parts from the first Aviation research node:

It could use a bit of tweaking to make it more controllable/landable, but it flies

One important thing to note is that I have the two large fuselage sections empty, no fuel. Jet engines are super efficient and can go very far on very little fuel, so you can keep things simple by keeping them light.[/img]

I think my problem was using the Elevon control surfaces instead of tail fins for pitch control. I got rid of the two Elevons I had stuck to the wings and stuck two horizontal tail fins to the back like in your picture and I was able to get something that flies. Is it also possible to use Elevons, or was I just using that part completely wrong?

Since I don't have the fuselage parts unlocked yet, I had to use a full fuel tank for the middle section, so the resulting plane was a little sluggish, but it flew all right.

 

[jotun?]

I think my problem was using the Elevon control surfaces instead of tail fins for pitch control. I got rid of the two Elevons I had stuck to the wings and stuck two horizontal tail fins to the back like in your picture and I was able to get something that flies. Is it also possible to use Elevons, or was I just using that part completely wrong?

Since I don't have the fuselage parts unlocked yet, I had to use a full fuel tank for the middle section, so the resulting plane was a little sluggish, but it flew all right.

Elevons should also work, depending on how you place them. Each Elevon 1 has less than half the wing area of a single tail fin, so you would need more of them to get the same amount of control authority

If you right click a fuel tank in the editor, you can adjust the fuel levels that it starts with. That way you can use a fuel tank the same as an empty fuselage. I'm using the Mk1 Liquid Fuel Fuselage in mine, which is unlocked in the first Aviation node

edit: Larger jet, still using just that first tech node, using elevons for pitch, roll, and airbrakes

The ones on the main wings are for roll and airbrakes. The ones on the tail are for pitch, and the vertical fin is for yaw

 

[Vlad]

Elevons should also work, depending on how you place them. Each Elevon 1 has less than half the wing area of a single tail fin, so you would need more of them to get the same amount of control authority

Ok, I just tried again with two of the elevons on each swept wing (and is it always that annoying to try to get them attached in the correct orientation?), and I was just barely able to get the plane off the ground. Even once it was up in the air, it was super-sluggish, so I guess it's tail fins all the way for now.

If you right click a fuel tank in the editor, you can adjust the fuel levels that it starts with. That way you can use a fuel tank the same as an empty fuselage. I'm using the Mk1 Liquid Fuel Fuselage in mine, which is unlocked in the first Aviation node

Wow, I never even realized that was an option. I always thought that was just there to show you how much the tank started with. It also doesn't help that there's no visual indication that it's even possible to click the fuel amount at all.

EDIT: Holy crap at that jet! I didn't realize that those rectangular "wing connector" panels were supposed to be used in that way.

I think a lot of what's throwing me off about plane construction is that, for the most part, the rocket construction was all guided by pieces that socket onto one another, and are indicated by the green spheres in the VAB. Planes seem to be a lot more about just slapping stuff on without any fixed connection points, which is requiring me to change my mindset.

 

[jotun?]

Wow, I never even realized that was an option. I always thought that was just there to show you how much the tank started with. It also doesn't help that there's no visual indication that it's even possible to click the fuel amount at all.

The new version 1.1 adds little slider notch thingies that should make it a bit more obvious

I think a lot of what's throwing me off about plane construction is that, for the most part, the rocket construction was all guided by pieces that socket onto one another, and are indicated by the green spheres in the VAB. Planes seem to be a lot more about just slapping stuff on without any fixed connection points, which is requiring me to change my mindset.

When making planes, learn to love the offset and rotation gizmos. Hotkeys 2 and 3 to switch to them, F to switch between local/absolute modes, shift to make smaller adjustments, C to switch to non-snapped adjustment, space to reset, 1 to switch back to normal part placement mode

 

[MrTroubleMaker]

Kerbal: Project B.E.A.S.T - Part 15

Hd link is broken use this

http://v.giantbomb.com/2016/04/02/vf_projectbeast_pt15_04012016_4000.mp4

 

[GavinGT]

Why do the lines disappear like this? This is the kind of crap that made me stop playing. I'd be on my way back from Eve or some other planet and all of a sudden my lines disappear. Sometimes they'd come back and sometimes they wouldn't.

 

[MadYarpen]

Try to set time speed at x2 (2nd lowest speed), it turns off physics I think and sometimes helps when orbits go crazy.

Or reload the game.

 

[runningjoke]

Kerbal: Project B.E.A.S.T - Part 15

Hd link is broken use this

http://v.giantbomb.com/2016/04/02/vf_projectbeast_pt15_04012016_4000.mp4

Pretty good result, guess they need a new target now. Hope they'll try to go to Duna and back. Even tough they don't really understand what they have already done it should give them a nice set of new challenges.

 

[MadYarpen]

Pretty good result, guess they need a new target now. Hope they'll try to go to Duna and back. Even tough they don't really understand what they have already done it should give them a nice set of new challenges.

I don't think leap from mun to duna is that big - difficulty wise I mean. If they learned something so far, they should do it.

Eve and back, on the other hand though... I have no idea how to make a ship to take of from there.

 

[MacGurcules]

Kerbal: Project B.E.A.S.T - Part 15

Hd link is broken use this

http://v.giantbomb.com/2016/04/02/vf_projectbeast_pt15_04012016_4000.mp4

Holy crap. They had so much fuel.

 

[runningjoke]

I don't think leap from mun to duna is that big - difficulty wise I mean. If they learned something so far, they should do it.

Eve and back, on the other hand though... I have no idea how to make a ship to take of from there.

You are right, it's not much more difficult, but they will totally overestimate it and mess it up

Doing a lander/orbiter Mun mission would be a good in between step and also present some new challenges

 

[mrklaw]

Kerbal: Project B.E.A.S.T - Part 15

Hd link is broken use this

http://v.giantbomb.com/2016/04/02/vf_projectbeast_pt15_04012016_4000.mp4

Both are broken for me on iPad

 

[MrTroubleMaker]

Both are broken for me on iPad

Yeah, it looks like they pulled it. Here is the new link.

http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/kerbal-project-beast-part-15/2300-11091/

music used
https://us.audionetwork.com/browse/m/track/in-the-dark_117167

I hope they do more of these.

 

[ThreePiMatt]

Oh no! The planet rotates!

edit -

Spoiler

Oh God, they were coming in fast, they're lucky they got that chute deployed.

I'm super excited to see them watch Scott Manley's video.

 

[jotun?]

Watching these project beast videos from like 10 through 14, it drives me up the fucking wall the way they keep using only the SAS controls to turn that big ship all the way around, spending 5 minutes every time to wait for it to stop overshooting back and forth

 

[gutterboy44]

They did the live stream of them watching the Scott Manley video. I missed it, caught it right at the end. I imagine it will be archived and up on the site fairly soon.