Drunkard's Walk Forums

Build number 12 is out - and it's a doozy - we have a go on launch to the Moon! 

First off - a few interesting additions to the program OTHER than the moon. 

First - Kearth now rotates and has a day-night cycle. 

A new feature you can add to craft is RCS Thrusters. It adds another option to piloting your craft other than just relying on the gyros and SAS inherent in the capsule. 

You can zoom out to an "Orbital View" that shows your spacecraft as just an icon and has the orbital vector drawn in as ray trace lines. Updated in real time as you boost. Which is an AMAZING addition - no more guesswork or using third-party calculators to figure out your orbital path. You can actually SEE it. 

And that's incredibly important too. Can you imagine trying for a lunar orbital insertation using nothing but a calculator and having to eyeball it? Well, maybe you can if you were trained as one of the orbital mechanics guys in "The Trench" at Apollo Mission Control. But for those of us a little weak on the math, this is a godsend.

Another godsend is the "Time Warp" feature. You can speed up time up to a factor of x10,000. This makes what would otherwise be an ultra long wait overnight into something that can be done in a few minutes to an hour. An entire mission to the Mun and back can be accomplished in 30 minutes to 2 hrs (depending on how much time compression you use and what for.)

So - the Moon (Mun). How easy is it to land on it? Oooogh... Not very. I've had live Kerbals make it down to the surface in one piece. But something on the craft always seems to fail and they get stuck there on the Mun. A lot of it has to do with the fact that given the weight requirements, it's almost impossible to bring along an extra SAS unit to help stabilize you. You have to use RCS thrusters and fly it yourself for the most part. You'll still have a weak SAS in the capsule itself. But that's not much. Still - better than nothing. 

So - some pics. And cue the Space 1999 theme music! 

So first, before trying to actually LAND on the Mun, I decided to take a page and some advice from the pros - the Apollo Program to be precise. Send something up to orbit the Mun first to see if you can do -that-. 

I used the now-venerable Falcon Mk VIII to test this the first time. Surprisingly I made it to Munar Orbit without a hitch. 











It's at the above point where in retrospect I made a serious error. Look at that green line back around the backside of the Mun. That's a damn near perfect "free return" trajectory! I didn't have to do ANYTHING and I could've simply looped the moon and come back, easy as you please. 

But no... I decided to "do it right" by establishing a parking orbit and THEN trying to boost home. Trouble is - the Falcon 8 wasn't really designed with this sort of thing in mind, as you will see. 





So I've got an orbit established, but I spent some more fuel to make it more circular, as I suspected the gravity of Kearth might yank me back on the high side of that. 



Ahhh! Is that the nuclear dump blowing up?! Is the Mun being blasted out of Kearth's orbit? ... No, it's just the sunrise. 



So after another boost to get out of parking orbit...


Trajectory looks good. 





I'm trying to bend that vector to intersect Kearth, but I don't have much fuel... I was hoping to establish an elliptical orbit and then tweak it on the Apogee end...



... but this is when I ran out of fuel... CRAP.

Oh it gets worse...



That extremely elliptical orbit took me far enough out of the Kearth/Mun system...



That it became a SOLAR orbit. Mark well, this is not what you want to see! 

On to the next set... 

So after that, I did a couple more orbital tries, this time with a craft that was better suited for the purpose. 



This was much more successful. Plenty of fuel for return. Lighter craft. Better maneuverability with the RCS thrusters. They made it home after a couple of orbits and sightseeing. 

 

I discovered something useful about the RCS thrusters. In addition to changing attitude, they can be fired unidirectionally. That is to say - if you fire them all forward or all backward you can make extremely minute changes in orbital trajectory if you do it right. 

This gave me ideas. I decided to get cute and see just how low I could orbit the Mun. Watch the meter counter at the top of the next few screenshots - 

























Jeb of course, loved that little skim. Bill and Bob were less thrilled. 

On the next pass I decided to try for even slightly lower. "How hard could it be?"







At this point, we've actually already reached Perigee and are starting to pull back up again, so all looks pretty good at this point. 

Say... that mountain looks awfully darn big...

















Important note: There are indeed mountains on the Mun taller than 500 Meters. Better go break out some more clone slugs! 

So after some preliminary messing around with practicing orbital trajectory, it was time to get serious. And actual attempt at landing on the Mun.

First attempt was looking good. 





Naturally I flub the landing at the last second. DAMNIT. 



There was a second attempt I made with a slightly different config of lander. For some reason I took no screenshots of that one. But it failed in much the same way. Kerbals were alive, but the capsule tipped over, broke apart and they're trapped in the command module on the Mun. 

Actually the fact that I didn't just outright crash and EXPLODE on my first two attempts might speak well for me. I'd like to hope so...

So I did some more research. Did some more tests. Practiced with landers in Kearth gravity. And found something interesting.



A Soviet style Mun lander and booster rocket! (Downloadable here if you're interested) 

This turned out to be an excellent design, both in individual parts and overall balance. The lander itself is sturdy. I was at first concerned, because it's all one unit. No separate ascent stage. Which means you have to be careful of your fuel use on the way down. Because you're going to need it to get back up again!

This needs some good music.  

















Once around the planet and then off we go! 





Here's where it's going to get tricky. But this lander is very steady.



If you can't find a FLAT piece of ground, at least find some that's SMOOTH. Cross fingers...



And down! But sliding down the slope! O_O



And... we stopped! We're okay? Nothings broken? Nothing went kaboom? 



We're HERE. We MADE it!



On the MUN! 



Magnificent desolation...



Turns out that despite the grade, this was the safest spot to land in for miles. 



That's one small step for a Kerbal...



Reason why I landed HERE is that taking off straight up puts me in retrograde to the Mun's orbit. Meaning not only do I escape the Mun's gravity, but at the same time, cancel out a lot of general orbital momentum in respect to Kearth. Making it that much easier to vector home. 



The nice wide plant of this lander's legs was really helpful. Especially on that slope when I landed. They acted like skis. 



Interestingly, they are the only part of the lander to be dropped on the way up. 









Okay... coming out of the Mun's gravity well... and... 



... caught by the Kearth's!



After some vector adjustments, it's time to sit back and wait a bit for the next part. 

   


Successfully bent the arc down to the planet! It's all downhill from here!









May as well bleed off that excess fuel before we jettison the tanks. 





Oh look! It's the Heart of Gold space capsule! The little teakettle that could!











And we are in the Stable 01 position with the egress hatch ready for the frog-kerbals to open us up and take us to the carrier. 





And that was my first successful Mun-landing and return! 

Logan, while I never got the hang of launch and return from earlier versions, I *really* like your screencap missions! Thanks for sharing.

very cool.

I assume there is no way to do a docking in orbit (as with the real moon mission)?
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy

No docking yet. I imagine if/when they include that, it would open up all kinds of possibilities. A true Apollo style CM/SM+LEM arrangement would then be possible. 

In regards to space stations - what would make that practical is if they had a "Save-Game" feature. IOW - you place a satellite in orbit. The game records what it's course/vector/orbital track is. Then you land/splashdown. Save the game. Satellite is still there on your next flight up. 

Or - what if you leave something on the Mun? That'd be even easier to keep track of I imagine. Imagine building an entire little colony up there! 

Of course that's starting to get into "Sim City" level of complexity there. 

Still - people are ambitious. VERY ambitious. Take this dude, who decided to lift an entire colony up to the Mun in one go!   :o 



Believe it or not - that is flying! The laws of physics are CRYING IN PAIN!! .... But it's FLYING!







And it ALMOST worked! 



Eh - Just tip it back over. That'll buff right out! 

-Logan
--------------------
(He needed the extra rocket power to drag his 
cast iron cojones up into orbit as well. Oi vey!)
--------------------
[img]http://[/img]

wow, that's some dedication
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy

Update: Two more successful landings and an important lesson figured out - 

Woot! A much smoother landing than the first one! There was some sliding involved, but only a small amount of horizontal skid. 





There were only two bits of weirdness on that 2nd trip. One was this - I have NO idea what to make of that partial orbital track. But it cleared up shortly when Kearth gravity caught me. 



The other was that instead of splashing down in the ocean, I landed on land. 



Uh... that's a MOUNTAIN!! Uh oh!!!



Ack! Ow!

"Think that exceeds the warranty, Bill?"

*Bang* Ow! Ass over teakettle!

"WHAT Warranty, Jeb?"

*KLONG* Ow ow ow! 





Russian capsule is RUSSIAN STRONG! 

Yeah, that'll buff right out!



Now - the important thing I figured out is this - 

Try to get to low Munar Orbit with a lot of extra fuel/delta-V. Get to low perihelion, then brake HARD, coming to as near a dead stop to vertical drop over the landing zone as possible. And line up your vector cross-hairs with the dead center of the nav ball. Like so - 











See how the green crosshair is dead center there? I'm coming down dead vertical. No horizontal vector at all. That makes landing super easy. Just keep your SAS on and feather your thrusters for as soft a landing as you could ever ask for! 



(That explosion was planned - had to drop the next to last motor and fuel tank to free up the final descent engine and landing skids. I still had fuel in that thing!







And down! And with nearly a full tank of fuel remaining! Enough that I felt like doing an extra excursion. Lifting my LM up the hill out of the valley I'd landed in and up to the ridge so that I could catch the lunar sunset. 











Needless to say - getting home was easy from here. 



This particular stack and lander is very forgiving. Enough that I learned techniques that make me confident in testing out new designs made from other parts.

Well that's it for the evening. Love this game, but I need to go do something else for a bit. Later!

I'm surprised it held together during ascent. But that's the Sovs for you.
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell

*explodes-twice* What!? I didn't even give the launch signal...
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

Waiting ten minutes for topics to load isn't fun
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

meh I like the images...

I managed to get to Mun orbit a few times, and even some orbits and returns, but I havn't gotten the courage for a landing yet.

The kerbels have a lot of delta-V, which makes it quite forgiving.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

Damn you Logan. Now I've downloaded this time sink. Damn you to hell.
--

"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor

To quote Marty Feldman: "Too late!"  ^_^

Quote:See how the green crosshair is dead center there? I'm coming down dead vertical. No horizontal vector at all. That makes landing super easy. Just keep your SAS on and feather your thrusters for as soft a landing as you could ever ask for!

I remember playing Lunar Lander on my father's office minicomputer back when I was a wee lad... This version looks prettier than plain-text, though.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

Wow. Lunar Lander? I remember playing that in the arcade. Back in the era of vector line graphics. 

And, er... the era of arcades. ... 

>.>; 

Yeah, I'm old. *sigh*

After a beautiful mun insertion orbit That was completely coplanar with the Mun, I managed to land on the Mun safely. Unfortunately my former SSTO vehicle lacked the fuel to get back home. I added some SRB's before this moon shot, but I am still short on fuel Time to stack on more SRB's.

Or maybe add a proper second stage on top for the return home.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

JFerio Wrote:Damn you Logan. Now I've downloaded this time sink. Damn you to hell.

Fortunately for me they don't currently support linux. Of course I only know because I was weak enough to go and check the download page...
-----

Will the transhumanist future have catgirls? Does Japan still exist? Well, there is your answer.

Very nice, Catty! I'm impressed that you got something that BIG down onto the moon! 

Speaking of SSTOs - I was experimenting with new parts - I was trying to come up with a new take on a basic orbiter like the Falcon VIII, but with a more Soviet look - and discovered that this combo happened to only require the single stage to orbit. Not -quite- enough delta-v to do a powered landing though. Still have to drop the booster and let the capsule come down on parachute. Unless I put it on top of a booster. Speaking of which - I sent it to the moon and tried to land it. Twice. Failed both times, but had Apollo 13 moments on both attempts. That is to say - mission failed, but I recovered the vehicle and got her home! I think the landing struts in the photo here just aren't robust enough for the vehicle in it's current configuration. Both times, I had two of them on one side break off - the rocket started tilting towards the moon surface, but I used RCS thrusters to get it back upright and then boosted like hell. And managed to get the Kerbalnauts home both times! Though it was a near thing in both cases. VERY little fuel left on the return trip in both cases. After that I decided to rethink this design for later. I think the basic config is sound. Just needs better landing struts and a more reliable booster arrangement to get it to the moon. 



I also downloaded even more parts. There's an airframe package which allows you to make spaceplanes like the shuttle and other things. Supposedly they have enough aerodynamics to allow you to fly. And while it is true there's enough lift, the physics and control interface make trying to actually PILOT like a plane in atmosphere REALLY unfriendly. I don't recommend it. Though the various parts combos do make for some very sleek new designs - 



And speaking of having a surplus of new parts - I started thinking of ways to REALLY get creative. 



Remind you of anything?  

Logan Darklighter Wrote:And speaking of having a surplus of new parts - I started thinking of ways to REALLY get creative. 



Remind you of anything?  

No, nothing... at least until Münbase Alpha is built.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

After a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth, I have made it it to the Mun and landed two successful ballistic impacts. (Can't slow the landing enough in time.) On the third go, I flubbed the insertion and was lucky enough to get picked back up by Kerbin before I got to far. The only mission that ended with the Kerbals returning home was a failure. Imagine that.
---

The Master said: "It is all in vain! I have never yet seen a man who can perceive his own faults and bring the charge home against himself."

>Analects: Book V, Chaper XXVI

LilFluff Wrote:

JFerio Wrote:Damn you Logan. Now I've downloaded this time sink. Damn you to hell.

Fortunately for me they don't currently support linux. Of course I only know because I was weak enough to go and check the download page...

I know, I run it under wine. It (usually) runs well enough, but after a while the icons pixelate. The game also doesn't like the big rockets I usually fly.

Quote:Very nice, Catty! I'm impressed that you got something that BIG down onto the moon!

Thank you.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

Couple of notes: 

- About the RocktCo Munar Lander: I've discovered that all the parts are about 1/10th the weight of their equivalent stock components, and the thrust of the engines is that much weaker in proportion. Also each fuel tank in that set carries less fuel capacity than something of equivalent size from the regular game components. 

There's good and bad points to this. You can utilize this disparity in weights in combination with other standard parts to your advantage in some designs. It also makes landing on the Mun very easy. Because you only need a feather light touch on the throttle during final descent. It also makes for a great trainer. Particularly since it is SO light that you can practice with just the lander component for an extended period of time on Kearth itself. Where other Munar landers have very limited engine strength and fuel capacity in Kearth normal gravity. Most other designs available for downloading are impossible to test properly from the launching pad on Kearth. 

On the other hand, if you get too used to using this to go to the Mun, I think it might cause problems in piloting other, more standard weight designs. I've realized this and I'm trying to build and land a more standard design using closer to stock components. 

 - Also - that Space 1999 Eagle I made? I've been trying like hell to get that thing to work right and I've just about given up. The problem is that the only way to make the thing look right is to build it vertically. But I want to LAND it horizontally, like the classic Eagle. And... It just can't be done right. I don't know if it's doable to make ANY design that can VTOL horizontally. I've tried making standard rockets with strong RCS thrusters for horizontal VTOL for testing purposes. Even the simplest of designs has a marked tendency to break up, even if it doesn't explode. I don't think any of the parts are built with horizontal stress in mind. Or there's very little. It might be a limitation of the game engine. 

My last hope is that if I can get it to the Mun, I can try landing it in the Mun's gravity and see if it will work there. But I've been having trouble designing a booster that will get it there - which I think goes back to what I was saying above in regards to learning how to use standard parts to land on the Mun. I can orbit the Mun just fine with standard designs. I've yet to properly land one there. I need more practice. I think I'll try a mostly standard lander first, then one with strong RCS thrusters to see if I can land -that- horizontally on the Mun. Then I'll try the Eagle. 

It is possible using aircraft parts that some people made. See the landspeed record threads and such on the Kerbal forums.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

Any specific links? I can search it, but if you've already seen the discussions, I'd appreciate a pointer in the right direction.