Kerbal Space Program

One thing I don't understand is why my rockets seem to go off course despite there being no apparent unbalance in their structure at all. So I spend the whole flight fighting the controls just to get it to go reasonably straight even with SAS all over the place...
 
StarBob said:
One thing I don't understand is why my rockets seem to go off course despite there being no apparent unbalance in their structure at all. So I spend the whole flight fighting the controls just to get it to go reasonably straight even with SAS all over the place...
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I don't know much about the game, but surely there is wind?
 
StarBob said:
How are you orbiting at 40km? Do they not have atmospheric drag that high?
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The atmosphere ends somewhere around 34km.

BTW, I just noticed that radial decouplers won't dettach if they're connected to an element connected to a standard decoupler that's active in the stage they are active in.
 
The problem isn't even as bad in the lower atmosphere as it is higher up. With all the forward momentum and thin atmosphere there shouldn't be any difficulties maintaining trajectory, but I am holding down both pitch and yaw correction and the SAS and still listing in a direction. If I don't do it just right I'll end up flying out of control entirely. It makes it REALLY difficult to try to accomplish a decent trajectory when you spend most of your launch trying to just go in a single direction.
 
StarBob said:
One thing I don't understand is why my rockets seem to go off course despite there being no apparent unbalance in their structure at all. So I spend the whole flight fighting the controls just to get it to go reasonably straight even with SAS all over the place...
Click to expand...

There's a tremendous amount of power coming from your ass end and you don't have a lot of control surfaces like a plane. An object pointed straight up when launched even if perfectly balanced is not going to flight straight up, and like a plane pilot trying to pull out of a nose dive it's not an easy affair to make some adjustments sometimes.

I assume anyway.

Unfocused said:
The atmosphere ends somewhere around 34km.

BTW, I just noticed that radial decouplers won't dettach if they're connected to an element connected to a standard decoupler that's active in the stage they are active in.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure you can get radial decouplers to detach whenever you want to. It's just a matter of rearranging the stages. That's my main gripe with the game, changing stage elements around is annoying as ****.
 
I don't know it's hard to explain but it's incredibly difficult. I think I'm going to add some fins and see if it stabilizes at all.
 
Raziaar said:
That's my main gripe with the game, changing stage elements around is annoying as ****.
Click to expand...

Agreed and it needs more options. I want to shuffle entire stages around, plus being able to add or remove stages.
 
StarBob said:
I don't know it's hard to explain but it's incredibly difficult. I think I'm going to add some fins and see if it stabilizes at all.
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To me fins just destabilize everything to ****ing hell.

Shakermaker said:
Agreed and it needs more options. I want to shuffle entire stages around, plus being able to add or remove stages.
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Yes, I don't want to have to add redundant decouplers to get the extra stages I need.

I also want to be able to select an item, or a radial selection of items and tell them exactly what stage to go to... without having to do it one by one.


EDIT: WHAT THE **** is with my pilots having an amazing flight... staying in orbit for awhile and then coming down with parachute to water or land at safe speed and then ****ing EXPLODING as they touch the water... or land.
 
Raz I have had the exact opposite effect with fins. Generally my final stage is just a fuel pod + liquid rocket + crew pod, and adding fins makes it go much straighter than not having them.

I'm currently having trouble making a craft that can orbit around the entire planet. I've looked up some height/speed ratios required to acheive orbit but no such luck reaching those speeds yet. Anyone got any advice on how to make a craft that can orbit for that long? Using only vanilla parts btw.

Also has anyone made a vanilla craft thats optimized to fly in the atmosphere? I saw someone make one on Youtube, but he used modded parts.
 
Hey guys. Let's do a "3 minute challenge" wherein we try to see what altitude we can gain in 3 minutes.

Here's my first attempt. on my special three stage rocket.

WYhdg.jpg


EDIT: I added some stability augmentation things to one of my stages and I just blew away my old record.

Have it all recorded too.

NPWrS.jpg


And here's the video.

 
Raziaar said:
I'm pretty sure you can get radial decouplers to detach whenever you want to. It's just a matter of rearranging the stages. That's my main gripe with the game, changing stage elements around is annoying as ****.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I just tried the most simple design to recreate this bug and everything worked, but I'm pretty sure I tried it in a more complicated design and the radial decouplers stayed on - just like when you dettach a booster that's pushing you from below and it still "stays on" because you're being pushed by it with great force, except in that case it makes sense. I'll keep in mind to save the design next time I encounter this.

I'm pretty sure that stage management will be improved, remember that this is an early release.

StarBob said:
The problem isn't even as bad in the lower atmosphere as it is higher up. With all the forward momentum and thin atmosphere there shouldn't be any difficulties maintaining trajectory, but I am holding down both pitch and yaw correction and the SAS and still listing in a direction. If I don't do it just right I'll end up flying out of control entirely. It makes it REALLY difficult to try to accomplish a decent trajectory when you spend most of your launch trying to just go in a single direction.
Click to expand...

Post your design and perhaps we'll manage to figure out what can be done about it (or point out if you're doing something wrong).

Raziaar said:
Hey guys. Let's do a "3 minute challenge" wherein we try to see what altitude we can gain in 3 minutes.

Here's my first attempt. on my special three stage rocket.
Click to expand...

Why attach 3 tanks and an engine above the tricoupler if you're not even using them during those 3 minutes? Unneccessary weigth. Remove them and you've got yourself 140k in 3 minutes, I just tried that (pod, decoupler, SAS, tricoupler, 3x [2 tanks, engine]). ;)

EDIT: Oh, so you had even more stuff on your rocket. Well, point still stands, ditch what you won't use, I made 140k with a part of your rocket.
 
78k with my orbiter prototype.

6SHIX.jpg


fJ3IQ.jpg


2x triple SRB to get me to 15.000 meters quick on full burn and after that a single LFB with 2 tanks. I can probably lose a little weight for extra height but I want to get into orbit with this thing.
 
Unfocused said:
Yeah, I just tried the most simple design to recreate this bug and everything worked, but I'm pretty sure I tried it in a more complicated design and the radial decouplers stayed on - just like when you dettach a booster that's pushing you from below and it still "stays on" because you're being pushed by it with great force, except in that case it makes sense. I'll keep in mind to save the design next time I encounter this.

I'm pretty sure that stage management will be improved, remember that this is an early release.



Post your design and perhaps we'll manage to figure out what can be done about it (or point out if you're doing something wrong).



Why attach 3 tanks and an engine above the tricoupler if you're not even using them during those 3 minutes? Unneccessary weigth. Remove them and you've got yourself 140k in 3 minutes, I just tried that (pod, decoupler, SAS, tricoupler, 3x [2 tanks, engine]). ;)
Click to expand...

But I can get back homeeee! I can go as far out in the universe as I want and still get back homeeee!

The moment I change shit shit it ruins all my careful stage planning. Frustrating.
 
Raziaar said:
But I can get back homeeee! I can go as far out in the universe as I want and still get back homeeee!
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Well, I DON'T SEE A 'MUST BE ABLE TO COME HOME' RULE THERE! 3 minutes and I don't give a ****! :p
 
LOL. I'm changing up my design to beat you then.

Looks like I might beat you!

EDIT: Yep! Thanks for the advice!




No way you're gonna beat that!

EDIT: if you're gonna post a response, it better be above 130,000 cause i'm still going!

This is how far I care to keep trying for now.



Something for you to shoot for.
 
I didn't get as far.


Edit: New build got up to 389k.
 
Raziaar said:
Something for you to shoot for.
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Dude, I already said I had 140k :p:

Unfocused said:
Remove them and you've got yourself 140k in 3 minutes, I just tried that (pod, decoupler, SAS, tricoupler, 3x [2 tanks, engine]). ;)
Click to expand...


It was 140422m I think, didn't take a screenshot cause it's not like we're going to lie to ourselves here, plus if we post the designs anyone can check for themselves, just like you did :)
 
What!? Gah. I misread you. I thought it was just a suggestion.

Let me try that. Seems too simple.

And here I thought my special multi stage rocket was impressive. All I needed was that ****ing simple design?

ARGH.


EDIT: GOD DAMMIT! It's unfair! Got to 145,000 with that.

Though... making some slight modifications to the deisgn, got it this far.

C4EHs.png
 
Actually your design is pretty impressive; I just noticed that you got those 138k while still being propelled, while I'm running out of fuel around the 2 minute mark, dettaching everything and it's only my light pod soaring through the sky due to the massive momentum. So theoretically I get a better result within the rules of this little competition, but your ship gets a slightly worse result while having significantly higher potential :thumbs: At 4 minutes you'd be way further than me if you dettached everything after you burn that fuel.

Also, after attaching 3 boosters with SASes to the 3 bottom fuel tanks, I managed 157,655m. BTW, final separation was at 02:07.

EDIT: An update has just been released. I suggest downloading through the mirror
 
Raziaar said:
I'm pretty sure you can get radial decouplers to detach whenever you want to. It's just a matter of rearranging the stages. That's my main gripe with the game, changing stage elements around is annoying as ****.
Click to expand...

The devs have said that is just a stopgap. In the future they want a more flexible system for rearranging stages. They just wanted to make sure stages were implemented early on as that is the purpose of the game
 
I say the challenge should be one orbit landing as close to the landing pad as possible... might be tough to prove though without a full video of the launch...
 
Didn't go according to plan, but I have just completed a whole orbit as we speak (and still going) despite initially going 1024K. My Jettisoned stage 1 fueltanks beat me to it by 20 minutes (took me time to realise the white blip moving across the planet was the fuel tanks and not a UFO)

[edit]and now I seem to be going back up, I might just make a second lap in about an hours time :(
 
Yeah I have no idea what's going on. I've taken apart and put this thing back together 20 different ways and the same thing is happening over and over. I don't know what's causing it. I'm constantly fighting to maintain even the slightest control and I still end up launching in a corkscrew. My ship doesn't look any different than any other ship I've seen. It's like it's getting worse no matter what I do. I give up.
 
What hath science wrought!?!?




 
What really frustrates me about this game is that it seems like I have trouble getting off the landing pad sometimes due to weight or something. Do the liquid fuel engines not have as much thrust as the solid boosters? Yes, throttle control is maxed. Sometimes it works but on some designs I've had to put a stage with boosters at the bottom just to get off the landing pad.

I do really like this game, it needs some better way to control the shuttle though. I have a lot of trouble using WASDQE with that view, I'd rather there was a cockpit view or we had some kind of autopilot where we could plot a course and angle and whatnot.
 
Ennui said:
What really frustrates me about this game is that it seems like I have trouble getting off the landing pad sometimes due to weight or something. Do the liquid fuel engines not have as much thrust as the solid boosters? Yes, throttle control is maxed. Sometimes it works but on some designs I've had to put a stage with boosters at the bottom just to get off the landing pad.

I do really like this game, it needs some better way to control the shuttle though. I have a lot of trouble using WASDQE with that view, I'd rather there was a cockpit view or we had some kind of autopilot where we could plot a course and angle and whatnot.
Click to expand...

Liquid have a lower thrust to weight ratio than solid. Generally what I and others seem to do is use solid fuels for initial launch. I also have a lot of problems with the controls as you've probably seen from this thread. I've discovered it's pretty much completely necessary to have as many SAS modules as you do engines running at once... otherwise you won't have the power to overcome the magical horizontal forces that will eff you in the A.
 
To get good at controlling the shuttle, I recommend you strap on a single liquid fool tank with a single thruster and launch. Use the wasd and q and e keys to orient yourself. What I found is that it's really really easy to control. Typically when I'm looking at my navigation ball the W key will move my cursor on it down. that means the ball will rotate away from me. Opposite is true with S. A will strafe the view left, and D will strafe it right. The only time things become really wonky is when you're spinning madly out of control in which case you're probably ****ed anyway.

Do what I suggested, take that simple rocket out(add a parachute if you're worried about your guys dying)) and practice flying around with the keys. It's very agile with just those components. Practice spinning wildly and then correcting yourself. I typically correct my spin first(not needed much when you have a stability augmentator) then the other keys typically at the same time depending on which way I need to stabilize.

Your Camera can be oriented around your space shuttle in any way and you'll still be able to navigate like that easily since it's all based on the nav ball, not your camera orientation. And it doesn't matter how your nav ball is oriented really, your keys will still move the nav ball accordingly no matter what kind of rotation you have. Your nav ball are your eyes for getting the ship where you want it orientation wise, not your camera or the way your ship appears to be pointing.
 
How high do you have to go to get out of the planets pull? I got to 550,000 and still fell back down :(
 
Ennui I made a quick little video to help you out demonstrating exactly as I explained above. Let me toss it up real quick. It's very rough of course but I don't care.


Morgs. Gravity never ends in the game. It's not completely realistic in that regard.
 
Ah, bugger. Better start looking at a new goal then :<

reaching that height and returning alive is a pretty big feat though I reckon.
 
morgs said:
How high do you have to go to get out of the planets pull? I got to 550,000 and still fell back down :(
Click to expand...

Well... I mean the closest Lagrange point is like 1.5 million miles away right? That's where you'd have to be to kinda stop. Other than that I dunno what it would be. Probably doesn't exist in the game.
 
Oh Ennui I forgot to post the link.

Just raw footage of me explaining navigating using the navball, so take it for what its worth.

 
It really is easy to control your spaceship. You just have to understand that with more weight, wobblier components things get thrown off a lot more. It still controls in precisely the same way, but it can take a lot more effort to get it to move how you want. The stabilization things really help in that regard, keeping it going straight up(or wherever your vector of velocity is, but you may have to turn it off sometimes to not have to fight the stabilizers.
 
Oh man, did the 3 minute challenge but fraps didn't record the video properly, it got all messed up. I'll try again later.
 
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