Kerbal Space Program: It's not homicide, it's rocket science

Overheal

We didn't have a thread about this, and we tot's need one. It's also on sale on steam right now, so you best go grab this, it's a very awesome game for something which isn't even at version 1.0 yet.

Version 0.25 just dropped, adding spaceplane parts from the mod community which includes lots of much better "Mark 2" style plane parts, better control surfaces, cargo bays, and enclosed docking ports. It's bitchin'. It also adds destructible buildings, for the purpose of teaching you the consequences of poorly jettisoning your stage boosters, and an administration center where you can adopt space program policies such as adding transponders to your said-jettisoned parts, allowing you to recover/recycle them instead of them just littering the countryside (assuming they don't disintegrate on impact).

I played the game the last couple weeks and got into the new career mode: its been officially gameified, which objectives and resources and project management and a tech tree.

So of late, I was really into space planes - Single Stage to Orbit craft (SSTO) which are just all around awesome. Took a while and youtube research to find out the principles behind making one that will a) take off, and b) not flip it's **** once its in the air. Hint: center of lift and mass need to be almost identical, keep in mind fuel-burning will change your mass.

I launched a space station (STATION) to act as a hub for doing science research in orbit, and refueling. I already had successfully got a plane to orbit, fueled it, and went mun-gazing.

With the update I built a new space plane, made it purty, and tried to dock it. I used up all my fuel aaaaand....



I can't get a hard seal on the docking port. After all that. Not much better when rotated 90 degrees either. So, this was going to be a pain in the ass: I hadn't build enough clearance into the docking ports. I didn't really have the parts to do that, either.

So, I did some science, and using the new spaceplane docking pods and some couplers and other fancy things, I made some port extensions, each with new panels for the station (to make it look station-y and not a discarded lucozade bottle). I thought about sending each one up, one at a time, but while this would be more time efficient, would it really be - awesome? No. Also, I'm not going to plot out 2-4 separate rendezvous with Station, **** that.



So each of the 4 units will be delivered via space train. Each one has a probe core attached to it's top. Each unit jettisons from the bottom of the train and will use monoprop to steer itself into a lock with Station. When thats done, the probe cores will jettison (being redundant) and each docking hall will then have 3 open docking ports: 1 on the top, the bottom, and the front of each unit. Complete with colored nav lighting. Still having trouble getting this train to orbit as of last night - the train wobbles horrrrrrribly even with struts; it's just an unweildy delivery system. But, way less expensive (and less frustrating) to sync with the station in one launch, so I'm sticking to the plan.

Once this is done, Station will probably receive another fuel delivery, and then I will re-launch my spaceplane before undocking to go pick up a kerbal who is also stranded elsewhere in Kerbin orbit. He's been waiting patiently for a pickup.

Of course I could always wait and do a redesign of Station - the problem is, the station was basically slapped together and could do with improvements on its design and layout. The other problem is, 6 kerbals are on board, and I didn't add parachutes into the station. So I have to get them all off first, and back to Kerbin.

Taylor365

Few threads over in games but it is deserving of moar!

Great game well worth the few euros spent on it!

I've spent a good 60-70 hours on it and I've yet to reach Duna! FLIGHT TIME IS 9 DAYS! 9 DAYS!!! That's 36 real world hours!

:pac:

Overheal

OK so I took another shot at this mission of mine.

A redesigned booster stage taking the center of mass into better account - and we are ready!



OH WAIT. Sh!t. Gravity is still a thing.



I probably need launch-girders. Derp

Here's a good view of the pods,



OKAY. So We got this thing up to +20km! Release the booster stage!



Thats not supposed to happen. Trying to stack 2x pylons on top of eachother for extra spacing on the stage meant I had double the explosive decoupling force and yeah that sliced the rocket in half. Replaced those with girder segments, ha.



Sexy! Clean separation! We're doing this!



The first one latched in OK - once I remembered that its monoprop tanks were emptied getting there. Had to reload my quicksave and refuel the pods from the top mono tanks of the delivery vehicle. And then I tried the second one...



I didn't not collide with the first one..

After another 45 minutes or so of careful spacework and having my sense of direction totally skullf*cked during the docking maneuvers, it finally came together, and actually looked really flush. I wasn't even planning on how well the pods would look symmetrically with eachother





Jettison the last few pieces of redundant parts and voila - space station upgrades! Now I have some legit options for additional upgrades, like more depot tanks or de-orbit chutes. Or, naturally, more science.

Sephiroth_dude

Is there a steep learning curve for the game?

Overheal

Not as steep as it used to be. The contracts in career mode walk you through the baby steps, and there are tutorials as well as an incredibly strong community on their main forum and dozens of popular youtube channels that will explain how to do things and give you ideas. Also that is another reason for maintaining a thread on the game.

Also: because of the learning curve and the skill technically required to do things as well as the free-form style of play, it gives you a huge sense of accomplishment when you do things, like build an SSTO aircraft, or dock with a space station, that you cant get from most games. Even NASA has consulted for the devs in the past, helping them introduce asteroids and ship parts to interact with them: you can send a craft to go latch on to an asteroid and change its trajectory. This is the same type of mission that NASA wants to implement in reality.

There are even more "simulator" type games out there, like the lunar lander game out on steam, but this one is a bit more cartoony and fun.

Taylor365

Sephiroth_dude wrote: »

Is there a steep learning curve for the game?

At first you think WTF...

...but afterwards, you kick yourself for not knowing how simple it is.

Overheal

Also: assign Bob Kerman to your missions. His facial expressions are gas.

Sephiroth_dude

Oh man... its very tempting especially at the current price....

Overheal

if youre still even on the fence about this (???) download the demo

Taylor365

Sephiroth_dude wrote: »

Oh man... its very tempting especially at the current price....

Still need convincing?

This should do it.

Overheal

this set me over the edge to buying the full game back in the day:

Overheal

With 0.25 out they've announced the next release won't be 0.26, but v.0.90 and the game will officially enter Beta with all major features implemented. 0.9 will finalize tweaks to the career system while future releases will bring less sweeping changes, but bug features and other nice things like a much improved aerodynamic model, extra content (more parts!) and improvements to things like issues regarding deep-space refueling.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/content/313-Beta-Than-Ever-The-Future-of-KSP

Grumpypants

Love this game have spent a good 70 hours playing this and watching boxsets.

Took so long to get to the mun and back I was so proud of my little kerbal , it was a major achievement which is a little sad

Genghiz Cohen

Grumpypants wrote: »

Love this game have spent a good 70 hours playing this and watching boxsets.

Took so long to get to the mun and back I was so proud of my little kerbal , it was a major achievement which is a little sad

Getting to the mun is pretty easy.
Having your ship survive the landing, thats another thing altogether.

Probably fixed now, but I managed to get my lone Kerbal to jetpack back to Kerbin through re-entry and land 'safe and sound' (probably a few broken bones at least)!

Overheal

KSP 2 is Out NOW!

quokula

I normally avoid early access, but I put hundreds of hours into the first game when it was in its own form of early access (before that was even really a thing on steam) so really looking forward to jumping into this.

quokula

Well this hasn't exactly turned out as hoped. The early access release is a mess, I ended up refunding it. There are also news of the dev team being hit with layoffs and cuts in the immediate aftermath, which doesn't sound promising for continued support to get it where it needs to be.

Hopefully they do manage to turn it around but on current trajectory I can see it being quietly cancelled before it ever actually makes it to release.

While following it I've seen lots of comments in various places about how KSP1 looks better with mods, and how mods generally transform that game. I played it to death way back when, but haven't touched it in 4 or 5 years and never got into the modding scene so tempted to get back into it and see what that's like.

jobrien874ie

I need to try the second game of this - the first one was great fun :)

Kiith

2nd game is very bare bones it seems, and has less features then the 1st so far. I'd give it a year or so, then try it.