Poor Choices in KSP

"Racescort666" (Racescort666) 05/05/2015 at 00:02 • Filed to: None

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For those that are unfamiliar, Kerbal Space Program (KSP) is an orbital/flight/rocket science simulator where you basically run your own space program. The picture above is a top view of the Kerbin system (Kerbin, Mun, and Minmus). Kerbin is an Earth analog and Mun is the Moon analog.

Like the actual Earth/Moon system, the moon orbits Kerbin counter-clockwise. My space probe, as you may notice, is going clockwise. They will be meeting with potentially disastrous effect. Or not, I haven’t decided if I want to land yet.

In the mean time, I promised Mac that I would share some of my wacky designs. Above is a super minimalistic rocket to get a Kerbal into orbit. You can’t have deadly reentry enabled for this to work. It will probably get you into orbit but it probably won’t get you back with deadly reentry. Fortunately, if you have that turned off (i.e. normal difficulty and no mods) then this will totally get you back.

I’m using the MechJeb mod which gives info on Delta V among other things. It’s best to experiment with it because MechJeb kicks ass and makes the difficult monotonous things much easier.

Anyway, a synopsis of the parts used in this ship. Note: you can’t put a Kerbal in the external command seat thus the capsule at the bottom. Also, the solid rocket boosters have their thrust limited to 30%. You basically only need a TWR>1 too achieve liftoff then as you lose propellant you accelerate more and more until the engines burn out.

Root Part: Advanced Inline Stabilizer

MechJeb 2 Case

EAS-1 External Command Seat

2x Z-400 Rechargeable Battery

2x FL-T200 Fuel Tanks (one above and one below the stabilizer)

LV-N Atomic Rocket Motor

Mk16-XL Parachute

Telus-LV Bay Mobility Enhancer (Ladder)

The ladders and climbing rungs as well as the stack separator and pod are just for getting your Kerbal from something to start in up to the command seat.

Well, I was in the middle of flying this ship to take more screen shots but the game crashed. Such is life I guess. More updates tomorrow evening.

PatBateman > Racescort666 05/05/2015 at 00:07

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Make a Dreadnaught-Class starship.

tromoly > Racescort666 05/05/2015 at 00:11

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Nice, I haven’t played in about a year but have fully updated, need to get back in game.

If I’m reading correctly, is it now possible to limit thrust on solid rocket boosters? In the past they were 100% at all times and a fire-and-forget, did they get changed?

TheOnelectronic > PatBateman 05/05/2015 at 02:48

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TheOnelectronic > tromoly 05/05/2015 at 02:49

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Sort of. You can set their power during assembly, basically trading thrust for burn time.

Still a one shot, burns-until-its-done rocket when you launch, though.

tromoly > TheOnelectronic 05/05/2015 at 12:05

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Ah. That’s still pretty cool that you can set thrust level. That has me wondering if the boosters burn longer when set to a lower thrust level, I’ll have to build a few rockets to test that out today.

TheOnelectronic > tromoly 05/05/2015 at 15:44

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Yep. Makes it easier to pair solid boosters with liquid stages; you can match up the burn times so you don’t need to worry about ejecting stages that could impact your rocket.