Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[BigD145]

More science instruments. Grab up a few things locally and then unlock bigger rockets.

[WillowLuman]

That or whatever we did last time.

[Aseaheru]

SCIENCE TECH.

WE NEED MOAR SCIENCE.

[tahujdt]

SCIENCE FOR THE SCIENCE GOD. ROCKETS FOR THE ROCKET THRONE.

[GreatWyrmGold]

SCIENCE FOR THE SCIENCE GOD. ROCKETS FOR THE ROCKET THRONE.

Your vote is ambiguous!

[Aseaheru]

Yah, hes talking about two things.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Let it never be said I don't try to make things right. Two updates today after no updates yesterday! And possibly no updates tomorrow.

We research Science Tech, getting us more scientific technology, to get more science to turn into more technology. It's a pleasant cycle.
First, let's design a science return landing pod.


_{The Jeb's Delight Science Tower. Now a sub-assembly.}

Now, a rocket to carry this thing to orbit for testing!


_{Can we build it? Yes we can!
Should we build it? Prob'ly not!}

Luckily, we have enough boosters. More luckily, problems of a rocket-kasploding type do not immediately develop! The booster stacks seem to be shaking up and down slightly, but it's like a pixel tops. Enough to scare me, not enough that it'll break everything. We drift a few degrees westwardly, but ejecting the solid boosters at 6,700 meters means we have more than enough gimbal to fix that--literally. Unfortunately, we're still rolling a bit annoyingly. I almost miss my gravity turn, fidgeting with stuff. I begin the orbital insertion burn before I exit the atmosphere, remembering my previous...fun with LV-909's. I pull the periapsis almost out of atmosphere, then set up a maneuver node.


_{Ah, maneuver nodes. I shudder to think what KSP would be without them.}

One more quick burn, and I'm in a decently high orbit (142/140). Let's see if we can't get some good, LKO science.

I do some calculations. We have a 6.67-ton vessel and 258 units of fuel. With an LV-909, that's...how heavy is liquid fuel? 5 kg/unit? And oxidizer, which is...316 units is equally dense? That's 574 units of stuff, meaning 2870 kilograms of fuel. Times the ISP of 390 m/s and divided by the mass of 6,670 kilograms, and we have about 167.8 m/s of Δv left. Probably. I try to make a maneuver which takes us high, brings us low (into atmosphere), and hopefully lets us take high-above-Kerbin science without screwing up our ability to return. In the end, I give up, and instead decide to land on the South Pole. I can't burn that much, so I instead settle for some kind of other rare-to-land-in biome, like land.


<sub>If this works, it'll be the first time I landed where I meant to in history! Unless "Kerbin" counts.

We went around an extra orbit, just for the pretty pictures!

And another picture.

Look at how well I'm not leaving them to drift endlessly in space until they kill themselves!</sub>

Despite going through an almost-140-meters-per-second burn, I still have 237 units of fuel left! Aw, man...

I prepare for landing.


_{Goodbye, rocket!}

Things may not go quite as intended.


<sub>The red arrow is approximately the direction I'm moving. I'm not sure where I'll land, to be blunt.

...Now I'm pretty sure it'll be in water.

Using the "pointy part of the flame" rule, we're definitely overshooting that islandy peninsulaey thing.

Bad parachutes! Bad! Point us the other way!

Why is it not letting us point the other way? (SAS eventually helps.)</sub>

Much to my pleasure, the lander doesn't fall apart when the parachute deploys. I am even more pleased when the water doesn't smash stuff. Now then, what kind of Science did we get?



_...Wow...

Alright. Once more, we have a chance to learn stuff. What are our options?

• Advanced Rocketry: Bigger fuel tanks and more powerful engines. 45 Science.
• Electrics: Inline batteries, solar panels, and lights. 90 Science.
• Flight Control: Reaction wheels, winglets, the Stayputnik, the Mark One Cockpit, fairings, and MechJeb. 45 Science.
  
  • General Construction: Struts, LSEs, tri-couplers, and a couple variant decouplers that I sometimes have a use for. 45 Science.
  • Landing: Landing gear (aka rocket car wheels) and landing struts.
    
    • Science Exploration: Ladders, thermometers, oversized science labs. 90 Science.
    Jeb, Bill, and Meleny stand by their previous suggestions. Bob advises Science Exploration for thermometers or Electrics for extended missions, and Archibald wants Landing because, quote, "rocket cars sound awesome".
    Director GreatWyrmGold wants to cover the Kerbal biomes as early as possible to get as much Science as possible for later things, so he suggests that Landing could be helpful, but the reaction wheels from Flight Control would be good, too.
    
    Alright. What'll it be? We can get two cheap ones or one of the expensive ones.

[Aseaheru]

Rockets and something else.

[WillowLuman]

Ooh, this is a tough choice.

[BigD145]

Rockets and flight control.

[BFEL]

Rockets and flight control.

[mastahcheese]

Rockets and flight control.

[GiglameshDespair]

Rockets and flight control.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I think I can squeeze in a quick update here. No promises on content amount.

We research better rockets and more controlled flight. This opens up quite a few new techs, which I'll describe in later updates when we can afford them. For now, let's make a science rocket.


_{Much like the last one, but with a lot more fuel. Especially on the last stage.}

Let's see if we can't get the White Rocket into high-Kerbal orbit. For some reason, the MechJeb unit won't tell me anything.

Problems start when I attempt my gravity turn. Specifically, the turn starts but I can't stop. It gets better when I drop the liquid boosters, but I'm already lost by then. I end the flight and add some reaction wheels. I still can't get MechJeb to work, though.
The reaction wheels seem to help stop me from spinning out of control. I'm on a good ascent and whatnot, shifting the angle of my turn, when I try to switch to map view and instead hit the spacebar. Most of my thrust zooms in ahead and I'm left behind, running out of time.

Today's headspace is not KSP-friendly for whatever reasons. We will not go to space today.

[BFEL]

After seeing thread title, my first thought was "Did you not go to space today?"