Practical Rockets
Round Fifteen
Session Seven
The Quest For Kerbucks!
Or more accurately, the quest for easy to get Kerbucks. First up was the second high-altitude observation launch. I just reused the rocket from the first one, minus the materials science bays. If I'd been thinking, I would've removed the science storage container as well. I made a steeper climb than last time, so I could get some more near space biome science during my spacewalks.
During launches, I frequently spend a lot of time on the map page, so I can observe my orbital path.
Soon enough, I able to complete the mission, which left me more time to gather Science!
I also remembered, with more than enough time to spare, that besides the water, shore, grassland, highland, and mountain biomes near the KSC, there was also a patch of desert near the west coast, south of the mountains. I still had plenty of fuel to maneuver with... which is something I wouldn't have had if I'd opted for solid fuel engines for the upper stage.
Finally, the capsule carrying Valentina returned to Kerbin, falling through a cloud (thanks to the EVE mod) in the pre-dawn light.
Sadly, there wasn't a new quick mission to take, so it was time to move on to building my first "space" plane. Five missions for one flight would have to be enough! For some strange reason, rather than opting for my "standard" early plane, I decided to make a tiny passenger jet. As always, I started with the non-"fiddly" parts: the fuselage, payload, engines, and tail fin.
Next came the landing gear and wings. For this kind of plane, I always use low dihedral wings. This configuration is a good balance between stability and maneuverability, and is useful to keep the wings from dragging along the ground when landing on uneven terrain. I also prefer to use canards (front control surfaces) over elevators (rear control surfaces).
Then come adjusting the control surfaces. By default, all control surfaces control yaw, pitch, roll, and can act as flaps. The plane's more controllable if the canards control pitch, the outer ailerons control roll, the inner ones are flaps, and the tail, of course, controls yaw.
After that, it was necessary to adjust the landing gear...
Finally, it was time to test the plane.
This time I recorded the mission, though once again it's raw footage.
I still didn't have enough money to upgrade the tracking station. Technically, one doesn't need to have this upgraded to get into orbit, but it definitely helps.
With five missions completed, there would be another five missions to choose from. Sadly, the only easy mission was a tourist one. Tourist missions are frequently not worth the trouble, but at least the suborbital ones aren't complicated.
My tourist capsule is barely stable upon re-entry, and can't handle steep descents. The Mark III "Pea Pod" capsule is much better suited for this kind of mission, but it'll be a while before it's unlocked.
To keep costs down, I'm using solid fuel engines. As such, I have limited control of the first stage, since the reaction wheels of the capsule aren't strong enough to overcome air pressure in the lower atmosphere once the rocket passes about 50m/s.
After the first stage was finished, the second ignited. I hadn't tuned the thrust for the upper atmosphere, so it was a bit more powerful than I'd intended...
Thankfully, it didn't turn out to be a critical error, so my passengers reached space safely, though with a bit more excitement than intended.
The descent was also a nail biter, watching the reentry vehicle drift off the retrograde vector, but never far enough to have it dive into the atmosphere nose down. The vessel was also going worryingly fast by the time it reached the lower atmosphere...
Thankfully, the chutes deployed with enough time to safely splash down. This provided just enough money to upgrade the tracking station.
Next up... the first orbit. I'm hoping to get into a polar orbit, in order to get the EVA Science! from the non-equatorial biomes.
Practical Rockets
Round Fifteen
Session Eight
First Orbit
It's time to complete the final phase of Kerbal Space Program's opening game. We are sending a rocket into orbit!
The plan was to get the ship into a low polar orbit to get the uncommon EVA biome science, raise the apoapsis of the orbit to just over 250km for even more science, and finally fulfil the test mission before returning back to Kerbin... hopefully in a new biome.
For this launch, the Delta-V requirements are: I need 3400m/s minimum to get into orbit, budgeting another 200m/s for the inevitable ineficiencies, cancel out the starting 170m/s ground speed, another 200m/s to get it back into orbit, and then another 50 to return to Kerbin... for a total budget of 4020m/s. The rocket has 4309, so plenty of room for error.
And there were plenty of errors made, as you can see in the video below. I actually spent an evening's session to add some notes to the video, which nicely reminded me of why I don't bother with this kind of thing often. Despite taking much longer to edit than it took to record it, I still gave up half way.
Besides the initial roll error, I also forgot to account for the fact that "3400m/s" includes the eastern boost, so not only do I need to cancel it out, but I also needed that much more to get into orbit!
With this mission out of the way, it's now time to explore the Mun... after upgrading the launch pad to support larger rockets.
I also spotted a mission to test the LY-10 Space Plane Small Landing Gear. These are so much better than the starting tricycle tires for the space plane, but the technology node required to unlock it is fairly on my priority list.
Coming up next, as time allows, is to start reworking my jump ship in Space Engineers...
Then, it's time to regroup in Empyrion Galactic Survival...
And finally, when we return to Kerbin, it's time to do a Mun flyby!!!
I can't tell you how many times I've wished for small grid "living spaces" blocks when trying to create my own small grid takes on Elite Dangerous ships. Plus they finally added a lot more PvE content to the game, which will make survival games much more interesting to play, especially since it used to compare so poorly to Empyrion Galactic Survival on that front.
So Space Engineers 2 has been (sort of) announced as in development. Looking forward to that, although another dev that doesn't finish anything properly, but we're all getting used to that.
I think water may come and we're getting 25% size blocks (blocks within blocks) which in my view will make a great difference to building in-game.
Roll on 2025.
Sorry I know its a thread about Empyrion, but it kind of fits. Many players will understand, if not the mods.
Just an after thought, I like this rover: (we need wheels in EGS, plus suspension etc)