There's something so satisfying...

"TheOnelectronic" (theoneelectronic) 07/08/2015 at 18:36 • Filed to: None

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...about taking an SSTO spaceplane to orbit, deploying a satellite, de-orbiting, and landing on the actual runway.

You’ve got to deorbit at the right point, maintain control through re-entry without overheating anything or skipping back off into space, and then manage to line up on the runway and bring it down gently despite having almost zero fuel (which reduced stability by a huge amount due to the center of mass moving)

#KSPlyfe

TheOnelectronic > TheOnelectronic 07/08/2015 at 18:41

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Most of my spaceplanes land by way of parachutes wherever they happen to end up. I’m lucky if I can get them onto actual land half the time.

BKosher84 > TheOnelectronic 07/08/2015 at 18:44

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What game is this?

TheOnelectronic > BKosher84 07/08/2015 at 18:46

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Kerbal Space Program, with several mods for parts and aerodynamic models and such.

tromoly > TheOnelectronic 07/08/2015 at 18:49

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Spaceplanes are frustrating, nomatter how nice it starts out they always crash, and I’m all like

TheOnelectronic > tromoly 07/08/2015 at 18:58

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Make sure your center of lift is behind your center of mass by just a bit and they should fly fine. KSP’s new vanilla aerodynamics are not nearly as permissive as the old system was.

And if you’re really masochistic, like me, you can install FAR so that you have to look up aerospace engineering concepts to build your planes. For instance, that plane up there was specially designed to minimize the drag caused by transonic shockwaves as it passes the sound barrier. Oh, and don’t forget to ensure that your pitching moment shows a negative and decreasing relationship to your angle of attack.

MrDakka > TheOnelectronic 07/08/2015 at 19:03

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VTOL SSTO or get out! Get that weak wing crap out of here! Max thrust all day, every day

TheOnelectronic > MrDakka 07/08/2015 at 19:05

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I see your VTOL SSTO and raise you a VTOL SSTO that can carry a mining rig to the mun and back.

...landing this thing was a nightmare.

KirkyV > TheOnelectronic 07/08/2015 at 19:32

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Back in my day, we didn’t have no fancy RAPIER engine. Or landing gear! Or a runway!

RockThrillz89 > TheOnelectronic 07/08/2015 at 19:45

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What’s this game like? Is it super hardcore simulation or is it more of a role-play arcade sim thingy? I just recently started playing Elite Dangerous so I’m all about dem space sims right now. Need to get me a HOTAS and ditch the Xbone controller though.

TheOnelectronic > RockThrillz89 07/08/2015 at 21:03

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It can vary. The vanilla game is pretty much like Lego: Space; the laws of physics are present but relaxed, but you do need to know a bit about orbital mechanics and basic engineering (No asymmetric engines).

Then there are mods like FAR (Ferram Aerospace Research) that implement a rigorously realistic aerodynamic model where you have to account for pitch moments and phugoid motion and transsonic flow separation and wave drag and... you get the idea.

And some people take things even farther, modding the game to make it 1:1 scale (it’s at a 2/3 scale stock) and increase the difficulty of doing things to be more in-line with real-world rocketry.

It’s definitely very different from Elite or the other sci-fi space games; flying to other planets involves orbital maneuvers rather than “aim and go.” Here’s an example of the map view, showing a “Free return” trajectory where you can fly-by the moon (Mun) and return to Earth (Kerbin) without any additional fuel use. It’s what they used during the moon missions so that, if anything bad happened, the ship would come back without any intervention.

It’s a lot of fun, though. Especially the challenge of trying to get larger ships into orbit that have enough fuel to make it to other planets. This was the ship I used for a “Venus” (Eve) expedition, complete with two shuttles and a rover:

The shuttles and rover I launched separately and docked with the main ship in orbit, but just getting the core into orbit was trial enough:

(Keep in mind, a lot of these, including the entirety of the shuttles, are mod parts)

It can also be a very beautiful game, especially with the right mods;

Sorry... I had my screenshots folder open...

RockThrillz89 > TheOnelectronic 07/08/2015 at 21:15

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Holy crap that seems in depth. I think I’ll stick with Elite’s point and squirt model. I’m an accountant, not an engineer so I didn’t pick up half of what you were talking about at the beginning. But since we’re sharing pics... Here’s the link to my Steam salary. Got about five from Elite Dangerous. Your last pic really makes me excited for surface landings in Elite.

If KSP is on Steam, I’ll have to watch for a sale on it. I’m interested in it, but I don’t think I would understand it enough, ergo enjoy it enough, to make it a full price purchase for me. And that 3rd from the last is really awesome.

TheOnelectronic > RockThrillz89 07/08/2015 at 21:32

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A lot of the fun for me is definitely on the engineering side, to be sure.