Those parts look great. I'll add them to my list. NovaPunch Gemini.

 

Now I have stupid question. Where do I find those supporting 'cranes' for the launch pad? My previous missiles rockets always started on their engines. :blush: That's not bad when they are light but, now, the heavy stuff doesn't like this and I also want to add some realism there. I can't find those! :(

Look under the Structural tab. They're called "TT18-A Launch Stability Enhancer."

 

Not only do they hold your craft upright and prevent all that weight from resting on your engine nozzles, but they also provide electrical power while connected, so your batteries won't drain while waiting for a launch window.

 

One problem with the Gemini parts is that they are all filed in the wrong categories, so they show up on the wrong tabs in the VAB. Most of them are actually under Science. I edited my parts to put them in the right categories and can post my modified part.cfg files if anyone wants them. It will just be a bunch of text files that overwrite the ones that come with the mod, not all the models and textures again.

 

NovaPunch itself is, I'll caution you, a sprawling mess. It's a bunch of abandoned mods (some of them by people who have since been actually hired by Squad and are working on KSP officially) that are being adjusted by others as the game changes, so they stay compatible. It includes a lot of things that are redundant or simply obsolete. I install NP then immediately delete about half of the parts that came with it to cut down on the needless clutter. But it includes some real gems. If you get NP, expect to spend a few days just going through all the parts to see what you'll actually use and what you won't. Delete the parts you won't use use from your KSP/Parts folder. Their subfolder names all start with "NP" so it's easy to keep track of what's in the mod.

Gemini looks very good but I prefer my game as the devs made it. (Apart from that rover...) :-)

You should be able to build good stock rovers in 0.19, from the looks of things.

Look under the Structural tab. They're called "TT18-A Launch Stability Enhancer."

Found them! Must have been blind. :blush: Need more coffee, or less, I don't know. Thanks for the HU, my space program just got ~12000% safer. ^_^ I did like the dancing rockets though. You know, the moving gimbals on the pad.

Rovers in stock KSP sounds good but in the mean time I've started to look towards Tylo as the natural step after Laythe. Roughly the same size and gravity as Laythe but with the crucial difference that it has no atmosphere, meaning no chutes and no jets. On the plus side it also mean no aerodynamic drag when going back up.

 

I have modified my Laythe lander to use only rockets and while being a lot heavier due to carrying a lot more fuel it can still get itself into Kerbin orbit, so Tylo should be a piece of cake, right? If only I didn't have to burn all the way down first...

 

I thought of making a detachable landing stage that I then leave on the surface of Tylo but the whole assembly got too heavy and couldn't even get into Kerbin orbit, so now I'm thinking about using drop-tanks for the decent. It also starts to seem very unlikely that it's even possible to make it with only one large rocket. I might have to make one rocket to bring the lander to Tylo and then another one to carry fuel for the return trip.

 

Another idea is to send the lander and the transport module up separately and dock them together in Kerbin orbit. One problem that might cause is making the those thing incredibly unstable with all the nukes pushing from behind and only a rather weak docking port in the middle. That problem can be eliminated by having the lander at the bottom as I did on my Laythe trip, but that means having the lander's fuel tanks awfully close to the nukes' flames.

 

Lots of different problems but that is what I like about this game. :smile:

My god, this sim is geek crack. I just bought this and have only installed it on my Macbook as if it goes onto my main sim PC I won't be fly on FSX for months!

Rovers in stock KSP sounds good but in the mean time I've started to look towards Tylo as the natural step after Laythe. Roughly the same size and gravity as Laythe but with the crucial difference that it has no atmosphere, meaning no chutes and no jets. On the plus side it also mean no aerodynamic drag when going back up.

 

I still haven't been to Tylo but, from what I understand, it is... challenging. High gravity and no atmosphere means you burn a lot of fuel landing. Not just from parachutes being unavailable, but from the lack of atmospheric drag slowing you down to terminal velocity from orbital speed. Taking off is easier than from Kerbin or Laythe because of that lack of drag, of course, but the lack of air makes it (supposedly) the most difficult body to actually land on in KSP.

 

Another idea is to send the lander and the transport module up separately and dock them together in Kerbin orbit. One problem that might cause is making the those thing incredibly unstable with all the nukes pushing from behind and only a rather weak docking port in the middle. That problem can be eliminated by having the lander at the bottom as I did on my Laythe trip, but that means having the lander's fuel tanks awfully close to the nukes' flames.

 

Look at the Docking Struts mod. It allows you to place strut end-points on your craft in the VAB but not actually run the strut between them. Then, once you're in orbit and docked, you right-click the struts to connect them. Here's an example...

 

 

The two sections were launched separately, docked, then the four struts connecting them together were installed. It makes for a perfectly stable and rigid connection.

 

Lots of different problems but that is what I like about this game. :smile:

 

The challenges seem infinite.

 

 

 

My god, this sim is geek crack. I just bought this and have only installed it on my Macbook as if it goes onto my main sim PC I won't be fly on FSX for months!

 

KSP is the only "flying" I've done in months. I'm sure I'll pick up a conventional flight sim again at some point, but when that will be, I have no idea. I'll definitely be trying out Prepar3D 2.0 when it appears, and I might even get FSX going again at some point prior to that. I've been looking at screenshots of the new ORBX scenery coming out or in development, and I do want to fly around that. But ever time I start up my computer I find myself launching KSP.

Would be interesting to be able to build spacecraft that are stressed for acceleration under tension rather than compression. These obviously would be vehicles assembled in orbit however stressing under tension could result in less mass devoted to structural integrity.

I dabbled a bit with the Kerbal Attachment System mod. It consists of winch parts with several different "grabbers" or other things (like airship anchors) that you can put on the end of the cable. A Kerbal on EVA can take, say, an electromagnet from the winch, unspooling the cable behind him, and attach the magnet to another craft. Then, if either craft thrusts, the other one gets pulled along.

 

Towing something on the end of a cable in zero-gee doesn't work that well, though. Unless your thrust axis is right through the center of the towed object's mass when you start the engine, it's going to swing around and around on the end of the cable and there's nothing to dampen that motion. And of course, when you turn around and thrust retrograde to slow down, your cargo comes flying right at you. Even if it misses you (and it probably will, because of the lateral swinging motion it picked up when you started towing it), after it flies past you it's likely to snap the cable when it gets to the end and is suddenly accelerated in the opposite direction by your thrust.

 

All this can be manged by extreme patience and switching back and forth between the tethered craft (using RCS on the payload to stabilize it, for instance), but it's going to be a pain.

 

The cable can also be reeled in with the winch, pulling the two craft together, but the cargo is still going to flop around some. And I don't think you could stabilize the connection with Docking Struts either, since they aren't actually docked and are still treated as two craft.

 

I've seen a few people build multi-part docked ships in orbit with the propulsion section up front (with outboard engine nacelles). They do work pretty well, especially for "skycrane" designs that deliver a payload to the surface (like rovers or habitat modules) then fly away afterwards.

 

The one big problem with forward-mounted engines is that KSP doesn't angle their gimbals properly. If the nozzle is forward of the center of mass, the engine gimbal's action should be reversed. But, in KSP, it's not. So, if you try to reorient the craft under thrust, the gimbal will be fighting against your other control inputs. And if the engine is very powerful and has a high gimbal-range, it may even make the craft unstable by overpowering your other attitude controls.

 

This can be mitigated by manually disabling gimbal-control on forward-mounted engines.

I was thinking more along the lines of the ISV Venture Star from Avatar, read up on the behind the scenes stuff where they got the inspiration for the design was from having it engineered to be a structure under tension during acceleration rather then under compression as the mass could be lower.

 

It doesn't mean that you use cables just the rigid structures can be lighter.

 

I've seen a few people build multi-part docked ships in orbit with the propulsion section up front (with outboard engine nacelles). They do work pretty well, especially for "skycrane" designs that deliver a payload to the surface (like rovers or habitat modules) then fly away afterwards.

 

The one big problem with forward-mounted engines is that KSP doesn't angle their gimbals properly. If the nozzle is forward of the center of mass, the engine gimbal's action should be reversed. But, in KSP, it's not. So, if you try to reorient the craft under thrust, the gimbal will be fighting against your other control inputs. And if the engine is very powerful and has a high gimbal-range, it may even make the craft unstable by overpowering your other attitude controls.

 

This can be mitigated by manually disabling gimbal-control on forward-mounted engines.

 

Never thought about the gimballing problem but I guess I'll find out since I decided to go with this solution for my Tylo mission. Because I have only four nukes and about twice as much fuel as on my Laythe mission I expect the burn for Jool to take the better part of an eternity to complete. I also wonder how well it's gonna hold together during aerobraking around Jool but we'll see. I just managed to get it docked before having to go to work but I'll be back with some screenies later if I have anything worth showing. :smile:

 

Also, thanks for the tip about the docking struts but I've decided to stubbornly cling to my ideals and keep it completely stock, apart from you-know-what.

Never thought about the gimballing problem but I guess I'll find out since I decided to go with this solution for my Tylo mission. Because I have only four nukes and about twice as much fuel as on my Laythe mission I expect the burn for Jool to take the better part of an eternity to complete. I also wonder how well it's gonna hold together during aerobraking around Jool but we'll see. I just managed to get it docked before having to go to work but I'll be back with some screenies later if I have anything worth showing. :smile:

 

If your burn time is like 10 minutes or more, it will be more efficient to try using perigee (or perikee?) kicks. This is where you make short burns as you pass through the desired ejection angle on multiple orbits. The further you are away from the ejection angle, the less your burn is helping you. In really long burns, you can actually end up with part of your thrust vector going against the direction you intend to go. Perigee kicks allow greater efficiency, but take some patience to execute.

 

Here's what the successive orbits would look like (pictures from Orbiter) during the transfer process:

 

 

 

 

I use this technique on most of my interplanetary flights, as it does reduce your fuel requirements by a good bit. My ion probe to Moho required eight kicks before I got a hyperbolic escape trajectory.

 

 

Also, thanks for the tip about the docking struts but I've decided to stubbornly cling to my ideals and keep it completely stock, apart from you-know-what.

 

You can create stronger structures in purely stock KSP with multi-port docking. Something like this, on both sections of the craft:

 

 

The first ports that touch form the actual docking connection, but any other docking ports that also align will form physics-connections that work like struts.

 

Be careful during construction in the VAB to make sure the ports are perfectly positioned for alignment, though. The port attraction is strong enough to tear parts off your ship if one port is aligned and others aren't physically able to get aligned, but are close enough for the magnets to activate.

 

The other catch is that you have to "undock" all three ports to actually separate the two craft.

If your burn time is like 10 minutes or more, it will be more efficient to try using perigee (or perikee?) kicks. This is where you make short burns as you pass through the desired ejection angle on multiple orbits. The further you are away from the ejection angle, the less your burn is helping you. In really long burns, you can actually end up with part of your thrust vector going against the direction you intend to go. Perigee kicks allow greater efficiency, but take some patience to execute.

I knew about this but I've never had to use it before so thanks for reminding me. I probably never would've thought about it otherwise. :smile:

 

You can create stronger structures in purely stock KSP with multi-port docking.

 

Yeah, I've heard about that but I've also heard some poeple say that it's such a ***** to get them all to lock that it's generally not worth the effort. Maybe it's easier now compared to when docking was first introduced. I'll have do some testing I guess.

I have updated my sim. Lets see whut happens........... :lol: