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In Progress Let's go to the Moon and do the other things (Kerbal Space)

Burning Bridges

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In any case saving 20 or 50 kilograms weight from a probe that is just 1 or 2 tons is more important that the little push from the separator.
 

Burning Bridges

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West Kermany is working on a Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle

A 20,000 m/s spaceship exists. At least in the calculations of Kerman engineers.

Apparently the sale of their rockets has been a good business lately. The Kermans have made a lot of money, which gives them the freedom to work on new and more powerful rockets.

KSP 2012-12-30 20-12-14-25.jpg


This 30 ton - ship, if placed in orbit, could develop a deltaV of 18.500 m/s on it's own. This means that it could reach velocities of over 20,000 m/s. The ship would already work, we have evidence that the Kermans have successfully tested it on the ground.

Their problem lies with the development of a super carrier that is able to lift 30 tons into orbit. This would be a twofold increase over the capabilities of the latest Koviet RD-400 and three times over the Kamerican Jool rockets. Not an easy task, if you consider that the Koviet rockets are already excessively large (400 tons).

KSP 2012-12-30 12-54-22-14.jpg


Aapparently they have been experimenting with a radically new concept.

KSP 2012-12-30 12-38-10-25.jpg


They seem to think that it is possible with the help of powerful solid boosters. But such a rocket reaches the the limits of material stress

KSP 2012-12-30 14-11-27-81.jpg


and so far all tests of the super carrier have ended in failure.

KSP 2012-12-30 10-59-53-40.jpg


However, smaller versions of the concept exist, and they have shown great promise, for smaller rockets.
 

Burning Bridges

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I think I will give up my attempts to build a 30 ton payload rocket.

It's not impossible, I have actually flewn some that made it into orbit. But they were ugly contraptions, not the kind that I wanted. The well thought out ideas fail on the launchpad. Somehow the structural limits of most parts are reached somewhere between 20 and 30 ton payload. Even with struts attached between all parts everything will collapse during launch or in the air.

Tbh I also got sick of all the other problems this program has, that Unity is slow as shit, that the vehicle assembly is full of bugs, the 3D mouse pointing algorithm is shit, the game crashes once every three times I launch.

So then, while it was great fun to actually calculate the weight requirements for 20 km/s rocket, I think it was no fun to build it with the software at hand.

In future versions they plan to add geysers, athmospheres, a Saturn-like planet system, I think I will wait and see until that comes out. For now it's getting ridiculous that most of the time I am waiting for KSP to load after a crash, or trying to figure out ways around the limitations of the vehicle assembly.
 
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Ulminati

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Huh? I got a 50-ton space station payload into orbit with no problems. Granted, I used mechjeb for the ascent, as the whole thing lagged quite a bit during the initial stages. But once I was coasting towards apoapsis, everything was 'k. Part of the payload was a full orange tank, and I had another half orange tank left over once I reached my space stations 150km parking orbit. I could easily have taken it to the Mun.

The lifting rocket is 196 parts, seperated into 5 stages. (Lots of struts and seperatrons to make sure everything seperates neatly with no collisions). Orbital stage is 4 LV-T45's (double bicoupler) under two orange tanks. Lifting stage is 6 mainsails with 2 orange tanks each, radially mounted. (No asparagus staging, although that would've helped. I didn't feel like setting up the seperation steps. Finally, the boosting stage consists of 12 large SRBs. The lower set gets very close to overheating, but the SRBs run out of fuel a few seconds before 'splosions would occur. This could be circumvented by shifting the lower ring of SRBs closchwise one step and the upper ring counterclockwise. That way the exhaust would have a clear burn path.

lejHO.jpg
 
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Ulminati

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In other news, I made a SSTO VTOL ship. It's kind of ugly and handles like a brick. But was fun to build.
zLMLx.jpg

3 turbojet engines and 15 ramjets (some of which are hidden under the exterior hull casing) allows it to reach a maximum altitude of 35km and a cruising speed of ~1800m/s. From there, a single LVT45 takes it into orbit with plenty of fuel to spare.

In orbit, acrually docking it with the Kraftworld Kore was hell. Mostly because my RCS placement was abysmal. So whenever I tried to move laterally or horizontally, I began rotating as well. In the end, I had to resort to Smart A.S.S. to keep me from rotating while I lined everythign up. But that drained monopropellant at an alarming rate.

WqBEE.jpg


But I got the docking done and refuelled the ship (had about 3/4ths of a large thin tank left). Meanwhile, Stereotypical villain admited the quantum struts that kept the station from wobbling after he docked.

0ai6l.jpg


Refuelled, the ship could go pretty much anywhere. But since none of the planets were really lined up to my liking and I was lazy, I settled for Mün. There's a pretty solid set of landing gear on the ship, although RCS is needed to get back on board because I forgot to attach ladders. Say... What's that tiny blob on the ground near where I am landing?
WAQlX.jpg



:salute:
FBeWS.jpg


Not pictured: Fragments of the ship scattered all over the place because I got a bit overzealous trying to move the landing site closer than the ~400m away I landed.

I'm kind of tempted to try and modify the ship to look like the shuttles the empire uses in Star Wars.
 

Hellraiser

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The cruiser I got to orbit was a 32 rockomax tank, 2-man lander pod, "tuna can" 5-man hitchhiker storage, 4 Nervas+small tanks for each on top of 2 jumbo tanks and 4 LV engines plus some RCS tanks, ASAS, thrusters, two gigantor panels and other minor things. When it got into a stable 130km orbit it had over half of it's total fuel with 40% in the orange double-jumbo (the other tanks were full). It was definitely over 60 tons, possibly 70. The launch wasn't particularly troublesome but I do late gravity turns with huge rockets (or they lose stability) starting at 40km. Sometimes the best bet is just to wait until all the mainsails are separated and fly straight up (rather inefficiently) until that time. There was lag obviously, but that's because Unity is quite shitty with no multi-core support. I have a quad-core CPU that probably could have handled it if it wasn't all one thread.

If the ship is falling apart for no reason you're probably accelerating too much and the struts place too much stress on single parts. It's best to even it out a bit with stages being interconnected in various ways. Like I have two nerva nacelles on a top stage, so they're connected via struts to their main stage fuel tank, the jumbo-4LV stage below them and the 4 jumbo-mainsail asparagus stage. If it's falling apart during separation then it means you need seperatron (but I guess you know that). Also avoid placing ASAS modules in the middle of large sections/stages, they're fragile as fuck and break easily under high Gs.

When I use double-jumbos+mainsails I have to toggle thrust down as they become more and more empty or they either overheat or fall apart from the g-forces involved.That's because for very heavy payloads where the fuel is an extremely large portion of the vessel's mass the TWR change (and thus acceleration) is huge over the course of the stage's burn time. So you end up getting a lot of Gs near the stage's end which blew up many rockets for me.
 
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Ulminati

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The Mark II has 3 wings instead of 6, redistributed RCS nozzles, rearranged landing gear and a ladder that allows the pilot to climb down. :thumbsup:
OvQfc.jpg
 
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Ulminati

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Look! Burning Bridges! Up there in the sky!

It's a bird! It's a plane!

It's... Capable of lifting 45 tonnes into orbit! :O

RzNjd.jpg


All stock parts except for Mechjeb
 

Burning Bridges

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Huh? I got a 50-ton space station payload into orbit with no problems. Granted, I used mechjeb for the ascent, as the whole thing lagged quite a bit during the initial stages. But once I was coasting towards apoapsis, everything was 'k. Part of the payload was a full orange tank, and I had another half orange tank left over once I reached my space stations 150km parking orbit. I could easily have taken it to the Mun.

The lifting rocket is 196 parts, seperated into 5 stages. (Lots of struts and seperatrons to make sure everything seperates neatly with no collisions). Orbital stage is 4 LV-T45's (double bicoupler) under two orange tanks. Lifting stage is 6 mainsails with 2 orange tanks each, radially mounted. (No asparagus staging, although that would've helped. I didn't feel like setting up the seperation steps. Finally, the boosting stage consists of 12 large SRBs. The lower set gets very close to overheating, but the SRBs run out of fuel a few seconds before 'splosions would occur. This could be circumvented by shifting the lower ring of SRBs closchwise one step and the upper ring counterclockwise. That way the exhaust would have a clear burn path.

lejHO.jpg

Cool. But this is what I meant with "abomination" :) I want to build someting else, a real powerful multistage rocket like the Saturn V!! I also got a 32 ton tank to orbit with little problem, but the rocket looked like a monkey bars.
 

Burning Bridges

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Look! Burning Bridges! Up there in the sky!

It's a bird! It's a plane!

It's... Capable of lifting 45 tonnes into orbit! :O

RzNjd.jpg


All stock parts except for Mechjeb

Perhaps I am doing something wrong here, but I don't think that gets even 30tons + into orbit The first stage and the boosters will be good for 1000 - 1500 m/s and 40 km for the rest the NERVA would drain a LOT of fuel from the remaining tank, which is 32tons. On top you add another 3 tons (!) of RCS fuel, I doubt the tank will be more than 2/3 or 1/2 after you get into orbit. This is not enough for the 30-32 tons spaceship I need in orbit for the 20 km/s attempt (it would actually make 21-22 km/s I think, but that's what I wanted to do as a next step after I broke 16 km/s).

Of course, perhaps I am calculating too big margins, and I am not doing the gravity turns right. I also see you are using aerospikes, which I ignored for a number of reasons, perhaps I need to reconsider...
 
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Ulminati

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Hello, Burning Bridges. I am Ulminati, and I an here to ask you a simple question.

Is a heavy lifter not entitled to beauty in its ascent?

'No!', says Kermany. 'Pnly ugly rockets can lift or the universe crashes'
'No!', says Polant. 'Attach moar rocket until success!'
'No!', says Jakan. 'Kamerica not permit us buiring rocket!'

I choose differently. I choose... The "Eclipse" heavy lifter.

H8xr8.png


A rocket where boosters will not fear collision with the launch tower.

iu0MX.png


Where lifter rockets use asparagus stalking.

eElIM.jpg


Where orbital fuel delivery is plentiful.

QCi9t.png


And, if you remember to extend the solar panels once out of the atmosphere...

3egPz.png


...Eclipse can deliver your payload as well.

ftO6M.jpg


For a price quote and further information, call Viking Space Program for .craft blueprints.* Operators are standing by.


*Mechjeb needed since I used a mechjeb core.
 

Hellraiser

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Aerospikes are pretty good for a central asparagus stage assuming the payload isn't too heavy, their thrust sucks. I use LV engines almost exclusively for those now since they're a good middle ground between the pure thrust of mainsails and the atmo ISP of aerospikes.
 
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Ulminati

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I did a lot of tests to optimize the rocket (hence why I built it around mechjeb for deltaV information when I set up the stages. There are 8 liquid lifter rockets, seperated into 4 seperate stages in the stalk.

Outermost step is drained of fuel at 5km
Solid fuel boosters are drained and discarded alongside outermost step at 5.5km
The next two steps are discarded at 11 and 16km
That leaves a mainsail, a double orange fuel tank and 2 asparagus stalk tanks (3 large thin fuel tanks + engine each). I could probably get slightly more lift if I replaced these two with LV-30's, but the gain is negligible and caused the SRBs to collide with the slightly longer engines. This could be fixed by moving the SRBs down a little, but since the rocket is capable of delivering a 45 ton payload into a 100km orbit, I'm satisfied to call it a day. The payload, coincidentally is my new refuelling tanker for space stations.
 
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Ulminati

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Erm... I had the wrong savegames megalifter in my dropbox. Url should point at the right .craft file now. If fuel budget is too tight, add another orange tank on top of the mainsail tank. I'm testing one now where I exchanged the 8 aerospikes for 8 LV-30's

[edit]

K, using Mechjeb for the ascent to rule out piloting as a margin of error, replacing the 8x aerospikes with LV-30's saved me 195 fuel units. Out of a budget of several thousand. Negligble increase, but it's there. :M
 

Burning Bridges

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Hello, Burning Bridges. I am Ulminati, and I an here to ask you a simple question.

Is a heavy lifter not entitled to beauty in its ascent?

'No!', says Kermany. 'Pnly ugly rockets can lift or the universe crashes'
'No!', says Polant. 'Attach moar rocket until success!'
'No!', says Jakan. 'Kamerica not permit us buiring rocket!'

Stop it, you're cracking me up :D


If you look at the screenshots on top of the page, my 19 solid booster looked not much different. It flew, and could have made it into orbit with roughly the payload I need, but it was not a reliable rocket, and when I added more engines it would start to fall apart. One big problems is that I added too much stress on the central booster, which takes the full weight of the rocket, so maybe there is a cure. But for some reason a rocket that has the SRBS in scaffold like configuration like yours (not a neat block) looks ugly too my eyes, and I wanted something really beautiful.

I had tried a lot of struts as well, but the I realized what a can of worms the vehicle assembly is.

Perhaps I need to give up and start with modded parts again, but what's the point in that? I wanted to go to 20, then 25 perhaps 30 km/s with Nuclear propulsion which is definitely ok from the calculations I did, but to send that spaceship into orbit requires more and more stress-wise from the parts, so I think I got frustrated and kind of gave up.

It probably all has to do with my idea of esthetics, it makes everything impossible. Like dumping the possibility to simply build 6+3 LVT-30 around one tank, this would beat the Jumbo engine in every possible way but did not look right.
 
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Ulminati

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A solid booster block is doable I guess. The main problem is that a solid booster block means your mainsail and LV30's won't be firing until the booster stage is spent, effectively becoming many, many tons of dead weight until the SRBs are spent. But, since you asked. I'm going to make a MK II eclipse where the boosters are mounted beneath the asparagus stages so only boosters and mainsail fire at launch and see if I can take it to orbit.

[edit]

Here you go, Burning Bridges.
Stage 1: SRBs + mainsail.
Stage 2-5: Asparagus Stalk + mainsail
Stage 6: Mainsail
Stage 7: Payload

Able to reach 100km orbit with a 45t payload.

aE2gH.jpg

Pyfno.png
 

Burning Bridges

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I also didn't use asparagus staging, at least not in the optimal way. I think I could gain a lot more tonnage that way.

The 19 solid booster block was not a good idea, for some reason it was where my rockets started to fall apart. It was really strange, perhaps a result of too much g-force and added stress.

A 7 SRB block was actually quite powerful for smaller rockets, it flew straight as an arrow with lots of acceleration.
 

Burning Bridges

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A solid booster block is doable I guess. The main problem is that a solid booster block means your mainsail and LV30's won't be firing until the booster stage is spent, effectively becoming many, many tons of dead weight until the SRBs are spent. But, since you asked. I'm going to make a MK II eclipse where the boosters are mounted beneath the asparagus stages so only boosters and mainsail fire at launch and see if I can take it to orbit.

[edit]

Here you go, Burning Bridges.
Stage 1: SRBs + mainsail.
Stage 2-5: Asparagus Stalk + mainsail
Stage 6: Mainsail
Stage 7: Payload

Able to reach 100km orbit with a 45t payload.

aE2gH.jpg

Hm, that's pretty clever, and powerful, but not easy to build and test.
 
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Ulminati

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K, I stripped the SAS from the payload since it wasn't really necessary. There's refuelling depots in orbit around Minmus, Mun, Eve and Duna now. :3
 
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Ulminati

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Burning Bridges

Well, I've managed to get my 40-ton lifter down from 409 to 370 tons total.

The idea is basically to build from the final stage and backwards. Making sure that every stage is able to provide enough deltaV for what it's intended for. Incidentially, there's a nice delta-v budget map here:
CEZS1.png

But also to make sure that for lander stages and ascent stages, you have a decent thrust-weight ratio. The Eclipse with a lowish 1.3TWR on its initial stages, didn't make it to 200 m/s in the heavy atmo, which is the upper bound of how fast you can go before atmospheric drag loses you more energy than fighting Kerbins gravity. (Ideal TWR for takeoff is ~1.8 to 2). So by putting more rokkit on my lifter, I was able to shave total weight off because I lost less deltaV to gravity. I also rebalanced the fuel in the asparagus stages, since the first asparagus-pair of LV30s was only firing for a couple of seconds and not really worth the tonnage it cost to lift them with SRBs initially.
 

Burning Bridges

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When I tried your megaliner, it was not an improvement over my rocket. Uncontrollable in stages of the flight, parts falling off, main engine exploding. I still need something that gets 30 tons into orbit safely.
 

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