|
withak posted:SAS is the logic part, that does everything it can to keep you pointed in a particular direction. The reaction wheel is the part that allows the ship to turn (with or without SAS) without needing RCS. SAS is useless without any kind of reaction wheel or RCS but capsules and probe cores can have small reaction wheels built in so you may not need to add a separate part for it. The standalone reaction wheel parts increase the amount of force available for turning (with or without SAS). If you have a biggish rocket that is having trouble staying pointed in one direction then adding reaction wheels may help. SAS can also use wing parts to hold course. At least it works well if you're using FAR. I don't remember how well fins work on stock.
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 04:06
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 9, 2024 12:47 |
|
|
Nuclear Pogostick posted:Hey, I'm still making that KSP music video I mentioned in the last thread - if people wanna toss craft files at me (I have a bunch of mods like KW and procedural stuff and so on, but no B9) I'd be happy to see if I can stick a couple in it. Anyone up for it? I'll put you in the credits. Rovers, stations, ships, it's all good. I must have missed this one. What kinds of vehicles are you looking for?
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 04:19
|
|
|
I'm imagining the VAB/SPH music playing on loop on a SpaceX factory floor and some workers being most confused. It amuses me 
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 04:31
|
|
|
I've tried some visual enhancement mods, but they either fail to load, or make the game end up looking worse. Can someone point me in the direction of something that looks decent and shouldn't have much problems running?
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 04:58
|
|
|
I'm surprised at how powerful the monopropellant thrusters are on tiny probes. Just tried one and it went shooting up to 400 m/s from the launchpad at full thrust. Is one small RCS tank enough to get back from the Mun with?
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 05:17
|
|
|
karl fungus posted:I'm surprised at how powerful the monopropellant thrusters are on tiny probes. Just tried one and it went shooting up to 400 m/s from the launchpad at full thrust. Is one small RCS tank enough to get back from the Mun with? Plenty.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 05:25
|
|
|
In my new game, I figured what the hell, I've played this since for ever, let's do Hard career mode! Boy did that ever suck the fun right out of it. It's just so grindy and frustrating and the stuff you can do is just... just not fun. One of the main sources of frustration is that you really have to lean on contracts to get money & rep & beakers but most missions are still assigned long before you are actually given reasonable tools with which to fullfill them. Like all the "visual inspection" and "in flight (at specific alt range AND speed) over kerbin" contracts - you really need plane parts for them. Without those mission types all you really have going for the early game is "test part in space" which is just gets boring very quickly. Either there needs to be more "stuff to do" variety in the early game that you can actually do, or the tech tree should be re-shuffled to have a much earlier rudimentary space plane (complete with all the drat parts - e.g. landing gear AND wings), and/or maybe probe cores. I understand the latter option has always been at odds with the idea that this is primarily a game about rockets and making the early game not about rockets takes away from that. I get that I really do. Maybe there can be a "main" branch of rocketry tech that is sort of the obvious and high-ROI path assuming you can actually make it to the next tier. Then only harder difficulty level have a real reason to bother going for early planes/probes. Everyone happy then? Hopefully this can will start falling in line now that there is an actual dedicated balancing person  Ideally, the balanced game should aim to guide the player towards a certain experience - at least in that, "we figure you should spend about this much time in this tier, this much in this tier" etc just to keep a deliberate pace of growing game-play options. The differences in difficulties should never be "each tier takes longer" - that's just grinding. It should just require more finesse, be less forgiving of inflexible strategies, require actually thinking about the trade-offs made with each part (which will hopefully also be balanced to be meaningful). I'm also getting annoyed at difficulty by way of taking away your tools. Getting someone to make more out of less is a fun challenge, but taking away their hammer and forcing them beat nails down with a pair of pliers is just annoying. The former forces you to come up with skills that will carry you through the rest of the game, the latter just has you come up with some hacky solutions (or worse, trial-and-error solutions you don't really understand) and then discard all that as soon as possible. That sort of learning curve is crap for progression.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 05:54
|
|
|
So grandad's axe got another head and handle. The lifter from one rocket ended up with the mining rig payload from another more exotic rocket and it ended up with two nuclear stages. Still, the whole mess made it to Minmus although my comms satellite network is pretty much non-existent. I used the second nuclear stage as a one-shot altimeter by dropping it and seeing how far it fell before it exploded. The rig touched down flawlessly, and then set about mining Karbonite and refining it into ...monoprop? I put the wrong converter module on 
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 05:59
|
|
|
Mr. Wynand posted:In my new game, I figured what the hell, I've played this since for ever, let's do Hard career mode! Boy did that ever suck the fun right out of it. It's just so grindy and frustrating and the stuff you can do is just... just not fun. Hard mode is supposed to be hard. You don't need plane parts, just maybe a jet engine for the Isp. Yeah, part shuffling may help balance the game. As will tweaks to contracts, upgrade prices, parts. I'm at level two stuff, and have several Mun contracts to clear before I start for interplanetary manned missions. Switching to my Eve probe days before its Eve encounter opened a black screen, returning to KSC was still a black screen. Looks like I just have to suck it up. Maxmaps, are craft deleting glitches part of hard difficulty?
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 06:09
|
|
|
karl fungus posted:I'm surprised at how powerful the monopropellant thrusters are on tiny probes. Just tried one and it went shooting up to 400 m/s from the launchpad at full thrust. Is one small RCS tank enough to get back from the Mun with? Yeah to get back all you have to do is escape from the Mun and make sure you hit Kerbin's atmosphere at some point. The rest is free.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 06:09
|
|
|
Geirskogul posted:http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/99660-0-25-Adjustable-Landing-Gear-v1-0-4%28doors-fixed%29-Nov-14 Are you sure? I haven't had much luck finding it in CKAN.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 06:10
|
|
|
Palicgofueniczekt posted:Maxmaps, are craft deleting glitches part of hard difficulty? Unmanned spacecraft disappearing without a sign are a normal part of any modern space program.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 06:11
|
|
|
Jet Jaguar posted:I must have missed this one. What kinds of vehicles are you looking for? Iunno, anything that looks cool, really! It's set to the title track off Oblivion's soundtrack (the movie, not the game). I have the first half done already, which is a Mun expedition, but the second half is intended to be more of a "KSP is magical" montage. It doesn't even need to be particularly mobile, as movie magic means I can use hyperedit without guilt. Of course I don't use it when playing for real, but it's indispensable in setting up shots.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 06:13
|
|
|
Dealing with command delays in RemoteTech drives me loving barmy, and that's still giving me a realtime view of where my craft is. I can't even imagine having to deal with 10m+ delays on, like, Mars rover commands and telemetry  (was it ten minutes? I forget)
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 06:14
|
|
|
Yeah, and I can deal with that. Just curious if they are going to reduce/eliminate disappearing craft or advertise it as a feature.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 06:14
|
|
|
Palicgofueniczekt posted:Hard mode is supposed to be hard. quote:You don't need plane parts, just maybe a jet engine for the Isp.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 06:23
|
|
|
Mr. Wynand posted:Yes I realise - my whole post was that there is the fun kind of hard and the not fun kind, and grinding is decidedly the not fun kind. They're doing a re-balance next patch, it's very much dumb and lovely at the moment. Ignore palic, he's a jerk.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 06:27
|
|
|
Mr. Wynand posted:Yes I realise - my whole post was that there is the fun kind of hard and the not fun kind, and grinding is decidedly the not fun kind. I agree with you. Wings are not necessary. You can make a funky craft in the VAB that is VTOL to complete some of those contracts. And your last question is dependent on player knowledge and skill; we aren't all Abyssal Lurker.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 06:45
|
|
|
Ciaphas posted:Dealing with command delays in RemoteTech drives me loving barmy, and that's still giving me a realtime view of where my craft is. I can't even imagine having to deal with 10m+ delays on, like, Mars rover commands and telemetry If you don't like it, disable it. It's your game after all. I still need to re-disable it for 0.90. CKAN is very useful by the way. I just started using it too. Just noticed that HullCam is in there. Woohoo! I swear that's the killer mod for docking and using KAS winches as space harpoons.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 06:48
|
|
|
Mr. Wynand posted:Yes I realise - my whole post was that there is the fun kind of hard and the not fun kind, and grinding is decidedly the not fun kind.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 06:52
|
|
|
Been playing Hard mode for a bit now, and I agree that it a needs a bit more balancing. In terms of the science to finance balance, I find myself ahead in science and always lagging in finance. Either increase funds yields, or require some science to upgrade buildings. I've not been using strategies either; initiation costs tend to be a barrier to entry (and aren't very worthwhile). edit: dumbassery Trivia fucked around with this message at 07:09 on Jan 6, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 06:56
|
|
|
Trivia posted:Been playing Hard mode for a bit now, and I agree that it a needs a bit more balancing. In terms of the science to finance balance, I find myself ahead in science and always lagging in science. Either increase funds yields, or require some science to upgrade buildings. I've not been using strategies either; initiation costs tend to be a barrier to entry (and aren't very worthwhile). Ditto. Gaming the contracts helps absorb failures. Like, testing your design for a Mun lander while having a contract for "Gather science from space near Kerbin" in addition to the Mun mission one. You have reasonable certainty on making orbit, but making the Mun would be a real boon.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 07:02
|
|
|
I'm not really sure what I'm getting into with NEAR. I know it changes the airplane mechanics, but it apparently also changes the rocket mechanics in some way that isn't really clear. It seems a lot easier to achieve orbit in rockets but harder to stabilize it and circularize. The mod site itself seems very vague about what it changes as well. Help goons!
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 07:10
|
|
|
I've parked two vessels in LKO, LMO, and LMinO in order to grind those easy contracts. I have a feeling however that those are not what the devs have in mind. I think it'd be nice if some contracts appear depending on your current flights. If you have a flight headed to or around a body, the list will show more of those contracts, as companies would think "great, how can we take advantage of this?" Also, since upgrade costs for building are pretty high, it might not be a bad idea to give a bit more funds overall, to help cushion failures. Maybe it's less of an issue at lower difficulties. I still think the best solution however is having each contract give you a budget, then a reward upon successful completion, or a % hit on each X dollars that you go over budget.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 07:14
|
|
|
fatman1683 posted:It's not autodocking, but the Lazor Docking Cam is a fantastic tool that makes docking WAY easier. It gives you a clamp-o-tron's-eye view, with additional overlay elements to show your relative velocity, position and orientation. The camera is a feature of the docking ports and doesn't require any additional parts, so you should be able to use it on poo poo that's already in orbit. Took this out for a spin since docking alignment is a pain in the rear end and holy poo poo this is miles better than the other docking aids in terms of presentation.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 07:15
|
|
|
Sgt. Anime Pederast posted:I'm not really sure what I'm getting into with NEAR. I know it changes the airplane mechanics, but it apparently also changes the rocket mechanics in some way that isn't really clear. It seems a lot easier to achieve orbit in rockets but harder to stabilize it and circularize. The mod site itself seems very vague about what it changes as well. Help goons! Rough guide: - start pitching over as soon as you take off (don't wait until ~10km like you did in stock). The atmosphere is much thinner with NEAR. - Don't pitch over sharply, try and keep yourself pointed within the prograde marker (so within ~5 degrees). - make sure your rocket is aerodynamic (The "Does this look a bit rude?" test) edit: your trajectory should look like this: 
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 07:16
|
|
|
Note: I play with FAR, though NEAR and FAR (  ) should be roughly the same as far as we're concerned. Actions on orbit will be the same as before, no change there. The aerodynamic changes in atmosphere will change how your rockets need to be built. Going taller and skinnier with a TWR ~of 1.5-2 on your first stage will help things. You'll need less delta v to get to orbit, but you'll need to be a touch smarter about how you build and fly your rockets. You won't be able to change your pitch nearly as quick in the lower atmosphere without sending your rocket into a tumble, your max AoA should be around 10 degrees (keep the nose of your rocket inside the prograde marker on the navball, pitch down slowly, and those should be close enough). Start your gravity turn a lot earlier than you would in stock mode; sometimes I start mine immediately on launch or, if my rocket is slow off of the pad I'll wait until 3-5 km up to start the slow pitch over.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 07:19
|
|
|
Sgt. Anime Pederast posted:I'm not really sure what I'm getting into with NEAR. I know it changes the airplane mechanics, but it apparently also changes the rocket mechanics in some way that isn't really clear. It seems a lot easier to achieve orbit in rockets but harder to stabilize it and circularize. The mod site itself seems very vague about what it changes as well. Help goons! It shouldn't effect vacuum performance of your craft. Post pictures, it helps. It may cause your rocket to flip if you have complex upper stages not shielded with a fairing or you turn too sharply from the prograde indicator. Generally, better aerodynamic modeling without advanced zany trans-mach/supersonic aerodynamics.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 07:19
|
|
|
Trivia posted:I've parked two vessels in LKO, LMO, and LMinO in order to grind those easy contracts. I have a feeling however that those are not what the devs have in mind. I think it'd be nice if some contracts appear depending on your current flights. If you have a flight headed to or around a body, the list will show more of those contracts, as companies would think "great, how can we take advantage of this?" I actually kind of like those contracts because you're rewarded for thinking ahead and building a station/satellite/whatever and parking it there. There are probably more fun ways to do this (e.g. "take this scientific cargo/millionaire kerbal/sentient meat product to your station and do an experiment on it in the lab/let him look out the cupola/have a potluck dinner"). As it stands, there's no other reason to leave stations in orbit, aside from exploiting the rules of the "build a station" contracts (you can add to an existing station as long as you set the vessel types right).
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 07:23
|
|
|
Sgt. Anime Pederast posted:I'm not really sure what I'm getting into with NEAR. I know it changes the airplane mechanics, but it apparently also changes the rocket mechanics in some way that isn't really clear. It seems a lot easier to achieve orbit in rockets but harder to stabilize it and circularize. The mod site itself seems very vague about what it changes as well. Help goons! Don't pitch sharply, or more accurately, don't let the difference between your prograde vector and where your rocket is actually pointing get too large. This is because the center of mass is typically behind the center of lift which is unstable. Your other option is to bring your center of lift back with fins at the bottom of your rocket if pitching gradually doesn't work well. Also, your center of lift doesn't need to be behind the center of mass of a rocket, but it definitely does need to be behind the center of mass of a plane, otherwise itll flip out the second you take off from the runway. Control Volume fucked around with this message at 07:32 on Jan 6, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 07:28
|
|
|
Avenging Dentist posted:I actually kind of like those contracts because you're rewarded for thinking ahead and building a station/satellite/whatever and parking it there. There are probably more fun ways to do this (e.g. "take this scientific cargo/millionaire kerbal/sentient meat product to your station and do an experiment on it in the lab/let him look out the cupola/have a potluck dinner"). As it stands, there's no other reason to leave stations in orbit, aside from exploiting the rules of the "build a station" contracts (you can add to an existing station as long as you set the vessel types right). has anyone tried rebuilding a station to achieve the "new station" contracts? So lets say you had a station with two components docked together, could you undock them, mess about with the craft definition (make them both probes or rovers or w/e) then re-dock them?
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 07:35
|
|
|
Splode posted:has anyone tried rebuilding a station to achieve the "new station" contracts? I don't think that triggers the "is this a new launch?" state for the contract. But I haven't tried to be sure.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 07:50
|
|
|
So what happens when you take one of these: And try to land the first stage 200 miles off the coast of Florida on one of these:  Today we find out! Zaran posted:
Zaran fucked around with this message at 08:01 on Jan 6, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 07:58
|
|
What goes up should also be able to come down and be used again!
|
 Also, in response to someone else: I don't think it's entirely PR, he mentions playing games like Bioshock, Civ, and Fallout elsewhere in the AMA so he at least has a decent knowledge of video games.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 08:24
|
|
|
Avenging Dentist posted:I actually kind of like those contracts because you're rewarded for thinking ahead and building a station/satellite/whatever and parking it there. There are probably more fun ways to do this (e.g. "take this scientific cargo/millionaire kerbal/sentient meat product to your station and do an experiment on it in the lab/let him look out the cupola/have a potluck dinner"). As it stands, there's no other reason to leave stations in orbit, aside from exploiting the rules of the "build a station" contracts (you can add to an existing station as long as you set the vessel types right). I too like reusable hardware. I used my first “station with lab in Münar orbit” to re‐fuel and re‐furbish a lander for surveys before I tired of them. It seems like a waste that I just delete satellites once their orbit is confirmed. From the perspective of the Kerbal Space Agency, they might as well not exist after handing them over to the customer, but still. Ideally they’d serve some kind of gameplay purpose. For example, establishing a Kerbal Positioning System could make surveys easier or improve the recovery factor for vessels landed far from KSC. A high‐bandwidth communications network could improve probe science returns or grant a massive reputation boost by televising the first Mün landing. SCANsat and RemoteTech exist, but when I last used them (which was admittedly a while ago) they didn’t yet have contracts integration.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 11:58
|
|
|
Icon Of Sin posted:Note: I play with FAR, though NEAR and FAR ( quote:What it doesn't do, that FAR does:
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 13:46
|
|
|
Ciaphas posted:Dealing with command delays in RemoteTech drives me loving barmy, and that's still giving me a realtime view of where my craft is. I can't even imagine having to deal with 10m+ delays on, like, Mars rover commands and telemetry I'm pretty sure remotetech control delay is the back-and-forth latency, so for all intents and purposes you essentially are seeing a delayed image of what happened in the past (half the delay ago)
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 16:14
|
|
|
Besides resources and aerodynamics, we are going to do huge balance passes and a lot of bugfixes. Beta has different priorities, and we are pretty glad we can now get to all that stuff.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 16:40
|
|
|
Re: the hard mode grind: I've been playing on hard (with reverts/loads allowed), and I agree that it needs a little tuning. Some of the facility upgrade costs are too high, most egregiously so for R&D. It seems far out of scale with the others. That's doubly annoying to me since I don't think limits on research options do as much to make the game interesting as the craft construction limits from the VAB and launch pad, which are much cheaper to upgrade. I would also modify some of the current restrictions - in particular I'd like to see the max active contracts in mission control increased slightly at both levels one and two, and the level 2 VAB part count limit reduced a goodish bit (it's much easier to hit the L2 launch pad limits than the 255 part limit). Alternately, switch from a part count limit to a craft budget limit, which could allow for more interesting tradeoffs. The contracts could certainly use some work to make them more fun, though I haven't seen many that are unreasonable in terms of feasibility. The early visual surveys are easy enough to do with multiple cheap manned ICBM launches, it's just kind of boring. Same goes for in-flight parts tests - you generally can cobble something together to hit all of the speed and altitude requirements, but they're tedious and fussy compared to satellite launches, orbital/sub-orbital tests, and the exploration contracts. And they rarely pay as well to boot. Details of the progression aside, I'm actually more interested in what the "end game" should be for career mode. Getting all your stuff upgraded may be a mix of fun challenges and boring grinds, and hopefully everything will get worked over to maximize the former and minimize the latter, but there's still the question of what happens when you get all your stuff to L3 and max out the tech tree. Historically, before we had these upgrades, the answer to that was (for a lot of people) "fiddle around with contracts and assorted side projects until you get bored, then wait for a game update and start a new save." The contract system has a lot of potential to provide long-term interest, but it needs some work still. There's also the simple appeal of exploration, but right now it seems like there's just not enough interesting stuff to go find for that to be a great end-game, and besides, gamifying exploration in some way would probably do a lot to keep people engaged. And personally, I think the biggest obstacle to keeping the game fun longer-term is the ability to stockpile unlimited funds - KSP is most fun for me when trying to get the most out of each craft, and when you have millions of space-bucks floating around (which will eventually happen after all the upgrades are done) that challenge kind of evaporates. Ideally the game would never stop testing the player's ability to achieve goals with limited resources.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 16:40
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 9, 2024 12:47 |
|
|
Luneshot posted:
I remember a long while ago space-x or a similar firm had a publicity shot of a workshop and one of the computers was running KSP.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 16:45
|
|