Kerbal Space Program

[Alcibiades]

Awesome

[frunk]

I can't quite break 200 km vertical in 3 minutes from launch using no mods.  I'm getting to 196 km reliably, but the last few km elude me.

[Razgovory]

I can't quite break 200 km vertical in 3 minutes from launch using no mods.  I'm getting to 196 km reliably, but the last few km elude me.

Can you do it in over 3 minutes?  I can't build up enough speed to achieve real Earth escape velocity.  I can achieve escape velocity of Kerbal Earth but not the 7 Kilometers a second for Earth.  The best I can do is about 4 kilometers a second.

EDIT:  Oh, and I've had the rocket blow up( and sometimes just fall over) on the launch pad but the capsule stays safe and sound.  The Kerbals are kinda bothered by that though.  Except Jeb.

[frunk]

It's easy to do 200 km in over 3 minutes, and i do do it about 2 seconds after 3 minutes.  Escape velocity also isn't a problem.

[Razgovory]

It's easy to do 200 km in over 3 minutes, and i do do it about 2 seconds after 3 minutes.  Escape velocity also isn't a problem.

Earth escape velocity or Kearth escape velocity?  They are different.  For Kearth it's about 3431 m/s  For the Earth it's about 11000 m/s.  I've never achieved anything close to the second one.

[Josquius]

I booted it up again today and...wow, its suddenly much harder than when I tried it a few days back.
Adding a third booster just messes up your ship so much and makes it hard to steer.

[frunk]

Kerbal, I haven't tried to get Earth without mods.  I have gotten Earth escape velocity with mods, the XL fuel tanks are seriously broken.

[Razgovory]

I'm not sure it's possible to get 11,000 m/s using the basic stuff.  The rocket parts just don't have enough umph.

[HisMajestyBOB]

I wasn't able to get a single-column rocket to separate by stages, so I tried a different design:


That actually worked pretty well, getting up to about 10,000 and the stages separated well.
So I thought "more is better" and used this one:


That one worked even better, so I went for broke:


That one worked about as well as you'd expect:



EDIT: Another design, based on the first but with 3 rockets per separator instead of 1, went up before becoming unstable and flying apart. One test had the command capsule intact, but the parachute had been blown off by the explosion. The astronauts had to ponder their fate in free-fall.

[Razgovory]

It occurred to me that killing shooting into space three Kerbals in one rocket was inefficient.  I am currently working on a ship to transport twenty one Kerbals at the same time.  There are still some bugs to work out, such as the rocket being torn apart or the capsules falling off but we are making progress.  One early version had the minor problem of launching toward the stars at only two meters per second, and sometimes not all the rockets go off when I want them to.  I thought I solved that by putting on a coupler that I had forgotten, but all that did was make the whole rocket explode on liftoff.  Still, the parts are cheap and Kerbals are plentiful, I think the project has some real potential.

I've abandoned the "all solid booster" rocket.  I simply can't get high enough.

Another project that seems interesting is to simply build a rocket 50 Km tall so that it doesn't have to travel very far or fast before reaching orbit.  Ideally the Kerbals would just have to climb up and jump off.

[HisMajestyBOB]

I find failures to be a lot more fun than successes, although the latter are a little more rewarding.

[Razgovory]

Oh, yeah.  I laugh my ass off when rocket boosters are torn from the ship and spin off into the sunset.  I doubt NASA found it as amusing when their rockets did.  Still haven't used mod equipment.  I may try that, but I get the impression it's more challenging to use the basic stuff.

[HisMajestyBOB]

Finally made it into space: 213km above sea level. Raz is right - liquid rockets and fuel tanks are the way to go for serious attempts, and solid fuel rockets are the comedy option. I wish there was a good way to attach separate "booster" rockets - so far all my attempts have resulted in hilarity.

EDIT: I improvised a type of booster ring using solid fuels and added it to my rocket. By keeping them close to the main rocket I avoided instability and got to 400kmby going straight up. Now I'm trying to get into orbit.

[Razgovory]

Orbit is hard, you have to do it manually.  I've never succeeded,  but it apparently involves slowly leveling out your rocket and trading all vertical speed for horizontal speed.

[frunk]

Here's how to get a rocket into orbit.

1.  Build a rocket that's stable (maintains close to the same direction no spin for at least 5 seconds without using SAS)
2.  Make sure the rocket can get to at least 50 km
3.  Fire straight up until you get to about 10 km, you can use SAS for this if you want.
4.  Turn off SAS and start turning in one of the four directions but only turn a little bit at first.  I usually go right or left but it doesn't matter
5.  Keep your eye on the gyroscope, make sure you are turning only in one direction, cancel out any other motion.  If it drifts
     a. Up push W
     b. Down push S
     c.  Left push D
     d.  Right push A
     e.  Spins right push Q
     f.  Spins left push E
6.  Be as cautious as you can.  Generally you are just tapping keys.  Overcorrection will kill you.
7.  Keep gradually turning in your selected direction.  When you get to 40 km you should be horizontal (you can tell on the gyroscope as you'll be between the two color bands) and maintaining it.
8.  At some point (2+ km/s speed depending on how high you are) you can throttle back your rocket and save fuel for adjustments.
9.  Watch your height.  When it stops going up you've reached the top of the orbit.
10.  Consult this table to see what your velocity should be at that point.  The further your velocity is from Vcirc the more eccentric your orbit is.
11.  If it's too eccentric you'll hit the atmosphere and you'll crash.