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Post by Julian Sharps on Sept 25, 2013 18:29:02 GMT -5
Don't worry, you'll get screenshots of Gusble Station as it departs for the Mun, as well as Li'l Man's first munar landing, complete with flag-planting.
Once I can figure out the whole screenshots thing, that is...
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Post by Adkenpachi on Sept 25, 2013 18:56:47 GMT -5
I may have manipulated the game files to have a union Jack on the mun...
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Post by Trooper One-Nine-Seven-Four on Sept 25, 2013 20:21:51 GMT -5
Don't worry, you'll get screenshots of Gusble Station as it departs for the Mun, as well as Li'l Man's first munar landing, complete with flag-planting. Once I can figure out the whole screenshots thing, that is... Excellent. I believe you press the ALT and the PRINT SCREEN keys to capture the screen image, then paste into a graphics program of your choice to crop it and save it. Thing is, though--at least with my computer--you can only store one screen capture at a time, so you have to pause the game, go paste the image and save it, and then return to the game which can be cumbersome.
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Post by Adkenpachi on Sept 26, 2013 1:51:11 GMT -5
No need to press alt
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Post by Trooper One-Nine-Seven-Four on Sept 26, 2013 13:16:15 GMT -5
You are correct sir! I feel dumb now. But then again, the person who told me how to do a screen capture years and years ago was a bit of a dingbat.
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Post by Adkenpachi on Sept 26, 2013 14:25:59 GMT -5
Gawd, what a dummy. Ugh! You guys get sarcasm? Right?
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Post by Trooper One-Nine-Seven-Four on Sept 26, 2013 14:29:08 GMT -5
Gawd, what a dummy. Ugh! You guys get sarcasm? Right? They were one of the most annoying people I have ever had to interact with in person in my adult life to date.
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Post by Julian Sharps on Sept 30, 2013 17:29:17 GMT -5
So, things that happened today in Kerbal Space Program: Gusble Station is now in a stable orbit around the Mun. It has no fuel, no RCS, and more than a half-dozen kerbals waiting for the whole kethane mining thing to start happening.
The kethane mining thing would have happened almost immediately, except for Jebediah crashing Li'l Man into the Mun while trying to soft land. Not too long afterward, Jebediah shows up at Kerbal Space Center, and he refuses to say how he got back after being reported killed when Li'l Man exploded.
So, another Li'l Man kethane lander has been sent up to Kerman Station, and is stuck ~50 meters away from the station with no way to dock, right behind the interim Munar Transfer Vehicle which is also out of fuel. So, Jeb commands a refueling mission to get both spacecraft docked to Kerman Station, get the MTV refueled, and lead the mission to get the new Li'l Man lander out to Gusble Station, where he will once again attempt to land the thing without making it explode in the process.
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Post by Trooper One-Nine-Seven-Four on Sept 30, 2013 17:32:48 GMT -5
*Sheds manly tears*
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Post by Julian Sharps on Oct 9, 2013 7:34:30 GMT -5
Did I mention how damn hard it is to land things without madness and things exploding? My Minmus lander's gonna be a rover (mostly because all the kethane is in the mountains, which I do not want to land on), but I think I might just make rovers the basis for all of my future landers (if not to make the whole killing-all-my-lateral-velocity-thing not as much of an issue).
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Post by Julian Sharps on Oct 19, 2013 19:39:21 GMT -5
So, I decided to give Career Mode a spin, and I have to say that I'm enjoying it muchly. I have acquired quite a lot of Science in the past 24 hours, which I have used to unlock the parts I need to gather more Science.
So far, I have successfully landed on and returned from Minmus, and I'm in the process of building a space station in Kerbin orbit for the purpose of farming Science. However, my next goal is an ambitious one: I'm gonna land on the Mun without destroying my ability to return to space.
I'm proud of the Minmus landing; I stuck it on the first try.
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Post by Cosmic on Oct 20, 2013 4:52:27 GMT -5
I demand to know how you are so good at this poxy game! I still can't manage to even get into a stable orbit let alone even contemplate how to build a space station or land somewhere else :-(
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Post by Adkenpachi on Oct 20, 2013 6:00:23 GMT -5
I demand to know how you are so good at this poxy game! I still can't manage to even get into a stable orbit let alone even contemplate how to build a space station or land somewhere else :-( Use the wiki for the basics, the bit I STILL can't do is build a craft which can toe/transport spare parts into orbit.. I managed to get a basic space station up and a fuel pod and dock them but the fuel won't go between the two :/ I want to empty fuel into the station then detach the pod. Also I haven't tried career but I can't wait.
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Post by Trooper One-Nine-Seven-Four on Oct 20, 2013 12:19:09 GMT -5
Glad to see people are having fun with this wonderful game. I haven't had time to play since the semester started. Even when I was playing, though, I had yet to make any significant progress because I was having so much fun just screwing around with sub-orbital and rover designs, and getting lost in the weeds on the sandbox potential of messing around on Kerbin with them.
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Post by Julian Sharps on Oct 20, 2013 14:08:14 GMT -5
I demand to know how you are so good at this poxy game! I still can't manage to even get into a stable orbit let alone even contemplate how to build a space station or land somewhere else :-( Use the wiki for the basics, the bit I STILL can't do is build a craft which can toe/transport spare parts into orbit.. I managed to get a basic space station up and a fuel pod and dock them but the fuel won't go between the two :/ I want to empty fuel into the station then detach the pod. Also I haven't tried career but I can't wait. It sounds like either you have the fuel pumps turned off, the tank you're trying to transfer to is full, or you haven't figured out how fuel pumps work. Right click on one tank, then alt-right click on the other; you should get a UI dialogue that gives you the option to transfer fuel. As for you, Cosmic, the way to get to orbit is simple. First, you'll want a rocket with multiple stages separated by decouplers; this way, once a stage runs out of fuel you can just drop it and avoid dragging around a bunch of dead weight. I suggest you build one with three or four stages, not counting solid rocket boosters. Your bottom stage should have the most engines, ideally ones with high thrust output; you need to get into the air as soon as possible. Your second stage should have no more engines than the first did, but it should be smaller and probably should have engines with vectored-thrust capability. Your top stage is what you're going to use for maneuvering and deorbiting; use a small and efficient engine for that one. It also wouldn't be amiss to put another decoupler between your top stage and the capsule. When you launch, go full throttle until you're moving upward at around 150 m/s; any faster, and you'll be wasting fuel fighting the atmosphere. If you start to pass 150 m/s, just throttle back slowly, keeping your acceleration rate constant. Keep doing this until you get up to 10,000 meters, then begin your gravity turn to the east (the North marker on the navball should be facing downward). Keep your orientation marker on the 90 degree vertical marker, and burn at full throttle until your apoapsis gets to around 100,000 meters, then cut your thrust and set up a maneuver node on your apoapsis (just click on your apoapsis marker and select "Set Manuever"). You should have about a minute until you reach apoapsis, so you'll have plenty of time to play around with your maneuver node. Click on the prograde marker on the maneuver node and drag it until your projected orbit puts your periapsis at around 100,000 meters. When you're satisfied with your orbit, turn to face the blue maneuver node icon on your navball and wait until your time to maneuver node is about half as long as your projected burn time, then fire up your engines to full throttle and keep burning until the delta-v indicator to the right of the navball gets to around 0 m/s. In order to get back down, you'd better have brought a parachute or two. Point your rocket so that it's facing retrograde and fire your engines until your periapsis drops below 70,000 meters, although if you want to drop down faster, you might want to bring it down to 40,000 or 50,000. Wait until the reentry effects have subsided before you decouple and fire your parachute, and then after that, you just wait until the parachute breaks your fall at 500 meters above the surface and brings you down to the ground at a gentle 6 m/s. Note that parachutes require an atmosphere to work. You'd be surprised at how many commenters on the KSP forums ask why their parachutes aren't slowing their descent to the munar surface.
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Post by Adkenpachi on Oct 20, 2013 15:03:30 GMT -5
thanks, I didnt know to not go balls deep on takeoff also so that should help me out a bunch too
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Post by Julian Sharps on Oct 21, 2013 15:38:28 GMT -5
Glad to be of help.
Today, I successfully docked my first science module to my new as-of-yet-unnamed space station (which wasn't easy given that I didn't have a control module aboard the station). I think my next mission is going to be a long-duration flyby mission around Eve (and possibly Moho, if I bring enough delta-v). Essentially, I need a lot more science before I can make a Munar landing attempt. I might also go back to Minmus and see if I can catalog all of its biomes.
That said, I'm beginning to have some concerns about Jebediah. This is the second time I've lost him due to crashing in this save file, and both times were when he was returning to Kerbin. Then again, he is our most experienced lander pilot...
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Post by Julian Sharps on Oct 21, 2013 22:58:16 GMT -5
So, I decided to attempt a landing on Duna. It took many revisions (mostly of the MOAR BOOSTERS! variety), but I finally got my lander into orbit and on its way to the planet, only to run out of fuel during the capture burn. So, Jebediah and two of my most promising recruits are now stuck in a high sunar orbit.
The good news is that their periapsis is neatly aligned with Kerbin's orbit, so they should eventually be pulled into Kerbin's sphere of influence if another planet doesn't do it first. Also, this makes it fairly easy to mount a rescue mission if I so desire (they'll be fine; they have a whole Hitchhiker module full of snacks and a high-gain radio connection to KSC), but the motherlode was the sheer amount of Science these guys sent back; over 600 units! I can keep doing experiments, too, so these guys still have a mission of sorts.
Now, I'm trying to get a dedicated control module up to my space station, but it's not going so well. I think I need to build a heavy lift rocket. Also, I have plans for an unmanned Jool Sphere mission.
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Post by Adkenpachi on Oct 22, 2013 3:53:23 GMT -5
I don't get the sending science thing... can you send it constantly from the same place? I've literally just made a craft trying to get to orbit :/
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Post by Julian Sharps on Oct 22, 2013 13:01:00 GMT -5
Yeah, you can keep sending Science from the same area, but the amount of Science you generate in the same place with the same experiment drops every time you do so. This is why I want to send a probe to Jool; As far as I know, there's high Jool orbit, low Jool orbit, Jool's upper atmosphere, high Laythe orbit, low Laythe orbit, Laythe's upper atmosphere, high Tylo orbit, low Tylo orbit, high Vall orbit, low Vall orbit, high Bop orbit, low Bop orbit, high Pol orbit, and low Pol orbit, for a total of 14 biomes not counting flight over land, shore and sea on Laythe, and landing on all five moons' surfaces.
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Post by Trooper One-Nine-Seven-Four on Oct 22, 2013 13:10:09 GMT -5
I want to see screenshots of this science generation (and all other Kerbal activities) please...
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Post by Julian Sharps on Oct 22, 2013 13:30:39 GMT -5
Part of the problem with getting screenshots up is that the computer I use to post to the IGMB is not the one I play KSP on.
That said, Scott Manley pulled off a Science generation mission where he landed on Gilly, and flew by Eve, Duna, and Moho before returning to Kerbin. He ended up getting something like 6,000 Science from that mission alone. He's put a couple videos on Youtube on that mission, and the rest of his videos on his channel are pretty fun, too, especially his Papers Please playthrough, in which he gives a live, in-character commentary on the game while spending the entire time speaking in a deliberately bad Russian accent.
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Post by Trooper One-Nine-Seven-Four on Oct 22, 2013 15:41:40 GMT -5
You can't upload screenshots from the gaming computer to Photobucket and then poop them onto the IGMB from Photobucket with the other computer? I'm confused, but that's mainly due to the fact that I have spent all day frantically calling small biotech companies trying to get interviews from them for my Capstone project and trolling government databases for spending data that can help me identify more companies to contact... My head is about to 'splode.
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Post by Julian Sharps on Oct 22, 2013 17:17:55 GMT -5
I'll see if my email host can handle large image files; if they can, I'll just email them to myself.
In other news, the mission to Jool was a mixed one. I managed to get my probe into a Joolian capture orbit by aerobraking with the planet's atmosphere, unfortunately, I was too high up in the atmosphere to count as being in Jool's atmosphere as far as my science parts were concerned. Also, in order to get my aerobraking maneuver by using as little fuel as possible, I had to get into an inclined orbit, which meant no less than two plane corrections to get my probe realigned with the ecliptic, which burned through just about all of my fuel reserves.
My second plane change, on the other hand, got me an aerocapture maneuver with Laythe, and after exhausting all other possibilities, I decided to land there. My probe was built with the expectation that I'd be returning to Kerbin, so parachuting down to Laythe's oceans was not a problem. However, that probe will never fly again. On the bright side, the view is amazing; nothing but water from horizon to horizon, Jool, Vall, and Tylo hovering majestically in the blue sky, with the Sun occasionally peeking out from behind Jool's great green mass.
On the other hand, the Joolian system is a gold mine for Science, as advertised. I was able to get Science from orbit around Jool, orbit over Laythe, inside Laythe's upper atmosphere, flying over Laythe's oceans, and Laythe's oceans itself, for a total of over 1,700 Science. I believe that I will be sending a couple more better designed probes to the Joolian system; perhaps a manned expedition at some point, after Jebediah has made it back from his failed Duna mission.
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Post by Trooper One-Nine-Seven-Four on Oct 22, 2013 18:01:32 GMT -5
Could you just transfer the screen shots from one computer to the other with a Flash drive? Seems easier than futzing about e-mailing photos to yourself...
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