Jump to content

White Rider

Members
  • Posts

    12
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Not Telling

White Rider's Achievements

Newbie

Newbie (1/14)

4

Reputation

  1. Yeah, I'm confused by the backtracking myself.
  2. I suppose technically as long as it has a docking port you could effectively turn anything into a station... But I'm with Penguin. Any of the other teams could have passed this milestone simply by having a docking port on one of their ships. Perhaps if you demonstrated its station usage by docking something to it? None of the other teams have docked yet.
  3. See... docking isn't so hard. Alpha Station is complete. Note that the cargo bay, and buran arms are two mods. Everything else is stock. Now to the semi tutorial: To make docking easier for yourself, always double check where the centre of mass is on your docking craft/payload. place rcs thrusters in equal lengths from it (roughly) just remember that your centre of mass will shift as you use fuel. Try to place your rcs in symetrical sets of 4. if your payload requires more than one rcs block per side to maintain its balance be sure to add the same amount of rcs to the base... For example: See how both the upper and lower rcs are the same. If they were not, unwanted spin would occur. Above is a basic example, but if the payload was wider and required say... 4 singular direction thrusters, then i would need to have 4 on the lower part too. The same spin happens if your thrusters are not in sets of 4. Once you are done with your rcs placement feel free to attach your launch phase again and blast off. You can use "docking mode" if you like but honestly its more awkward than it's worth having to switch between rotation and radial movement. I personally find it easier using the regular rotational controls and radial controls (WASD-QE and IJKL-HN) As long as your rcs is attached properly and balanced around your centre of mass, docking is a piece of cake.
  4. Hit a few obstructions whilst building a new SSTO... So i decided to build a space station instead: Current Specs: - 5 Cupola module bays for the stations staff to work. - 8 Gigantor solar panels and 8 packaged 1x6 solar panels to maintain power. - 4 Radial dry docks. - 1 Large cargo bay capable of holding up to around 8 small sensor probes, or extra snack supplies. - 2 Canadarm style robotic arms to reach snacks that may have fallen into the structural part of the bay. - 2 Buran style robotic arms to salvage what's left of the snacks the larger arm has undoubtedly just crushed. It's still not quite finished. I need to add one more section at least for use as an RCS/Fuel station. The four radial docking ports will be more than enough for now, and the cargo bay can store a bunch of sensor probes for future use. I do like the new Cupola module.
  5. So I've ran into some problems with the design and I'm currently trying to rectify them. The trouble comes from the TIE fighters iconic shape oddly enough. In order to keep the. TIE fighters shape, I'm forced to use the large fuel tank variants. Using the smallest of those (the equivalent in capacity/weight of the largest mid sized fuel tanks) makes it quite compact which is nice and exactly what I need it to be, however I also need considerably more power than other SSTO craft... The Cupola module weighs in at an incredible 4.5 tonnes. With this sitting right at the nose of the craft its quite hard to balance. Thrust quickly becomes an issue too as lifting its heavy body is quite the challenge for jet engines as they need to spool fully before they even have a chance. Originally using only 2 jets this was impossible and fitting 4 on the small rear area AS WELL AS a rocket engine is... Troublesome. Ill let you know when I progress. Ah the joys of engineering.
  6. With the release of the 0.20 update I figured i'd get some use out of the few new parts we got. Using the Cupola module (a perfect fit for that TIE fighter look) and the new skipper engine, I've been running preliminary tests and all is going well so far. Apologies for not posting pictures yet, but I want to perfect and finalize the design first. Don't worry... It's very close to finished. I just want to show the kind of things that are possible if you put your mind to it. Pics to follow soon.
  7. Sounds like a good plan. Food luck with the launch! Side note: Apoapsis - highest point in orbit. Periapsis - lowest point in orbit. These are general terms applied to all planetary bodies in KSP. IRL they generally have different names depending on which planetary body your talking about. For example on earth it would be Apogeo/Perigeo. (I think it's much simpler to have generalized terms for all bodies.)
  8. How can you be sure that you will reach Mun orbit? Are you going to circularize your Kerbin orbit first or burn straight for Mun? What Time would the most reasonable launch window be to meet your goals?
  9. As your poor kerbal is trapped in orbit for now with no fuel to return home perhaps it may be an idea further down the line to attempt a rescue mission where you could bring a seperate pod for him to be returned home in. Get used to orbits first though. In future you may also consider adding a docking port somewhere on your craft so that if similar tragedys were to happen, not only could you save the stranded astronaut, but you may learn how to rendezvous in orbit in the process, refueling the ship (with docking port) would allow you to deorbit and save his ship too getting you some funds back for the recovery of his ship parts.
  10. Docking can be one of the more difficult maneuvers to learn when it comes to judging when the correct time to burn engines to rendezvous with target, but if you can successful it can be an efficient way of landing and knowing you still have fuel left in your drive stage to return you home. I would similarly recommend training yourself by attempting to build a small (key word there. Small) space station.
  11. For your first attempt at putting a satellite into orbit this is actually quite impressive. As for matters of efficiency, before I could see the pics I seen in your parts log that you were bringing a lot of fuel and you would no question be able to achieve your goal even if you halved your final stage. You did however do a fair job with what you used. Nice use of fuel lines to feed the central tank. You may find in future that if using wings that you don't need a gimble functioning engine or vice versa as either one on their own would allow you to turn easily saving weight, mass and reducing drag if you only used the engine. (Saves buying 4 wings too! ;-D ). Remember to check the isp of the engines too, for your initial booster stage there may be other engines that are highly efficient when within the atmosphere. (I'll let you check which.) Lastly remember terminal velocity. Overthrottling too early can cost you a lot of fuel for not a lot of gain.
×
×
  • Create New...