Kerbal Space Program, or: "How many rockets can I slap onto this thing?" - Games

[img]http://filesmelt.com/dl/Dat_rocket.jpg[/img] It would go much farther if the last booster was a normal engine. Also I got it to hit 40Gs in an explosion when I forgot to turn on my stabilizers

[QUOTE=TheTalon;31037907]Well you'll fall back to it, but if you accelerate to the proper speed, and when your engines cut your vertical speed was near 0, you won't remain at that altitude, you'll just slowly decelerate while slowly and slowly climbing faster and faster because you don't go around the planet at roughly the same altitude[/QUOTE] Yeah.. That's how orbits work. Because there are no visualisations to help with trajectory planning, most orbits are highly elliptical. This results in you climbing faster because of the shape of the orbit, until you reach the top, and start to fall again.

I'll try to draw what I mean, it's hard to explain

Okay, tried how fast I could get with modding and this is it : [thumb]http://horobox.reager.org/u/tmARiku_1310403847.jpg[/thumb] The game was stuttering a lot, here's a pic of the rocket itself : [thumb]http://horobox.reager.org/u/tmARiku_1310378491.jpg[/thumb]

Hm, if you set the maximum thrust of an engine too high, it seems to burn itself out and fail.

[QUOTE=Wingedwizard;31037948][img]http://filesmelt.com/dl/Dat_rocket.jpg[/img] It would go much farther if the last booster was a normal engine. Also I got it to hit [B]40Gs[/B] in an explosion when I forgot to turn on my stabilizers[/QUOTE] Pfft. [img]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10565588/Pictures/WAT.png[/img] [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NMGfz1bz9M[/media]

[IMG]http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y37/SaborWolf/kerbalnograv.jpg[/IMG] It would be nice to be able to get into a closed orbit, in Kerbal, and actually have to do a De-Orbit burn to fall back to the surface. As it is now, I don't think that's possible

I installed the extra parts pack and its stuck on the first loading screen :(

I hit 74 G's heading up once. These Kerbals must be much more resilient than humans.

[QUOTE=Carbo;31038015]I installed the extra parts pack and its stuck on the first loading screen :([/QUOTE] Takes a while to boot up with the pack.

I think Talon's trying to say that a planet's gravity should have less effect on the rocket the further it goes into space, for example, you can get your ship up to 1000 km and it will fall back to the planet at the same speed as when the ship is 1000 m. Also, when the ship is several thousand kilometers out in space, it really shouldn't be falling back to the planet unless the planet has an enormous amount of gravitational pull. Edit: Talon already explained above, reconfiguring the gravity such as shown would make space stations much easier to have and maintain.

Ok, short update here: I did a few more things. * I added a Sound Normalizer to the game, that will make the volume levels stick to a maximum. So having 300 boosters won't blow your speakers anymore. This works by analysing the sound peaks at each frame, and reducing the volume in proportion to how much it was over the threshold. So it still sounds as if it would be really really loud, but it doesn't blow the speakers. * I also tweaked the attachment scheme. Now the wobble is more controlled. (I hadn't realized there was such an ugly wobble with several tanks stacked under a tricoupler) Next, I'll add some more settings to the settings.cfg file, to allow toggling the sound normalizer, and ajust it's parameters, like threshold and responsiveness. About the gravitational pull, it is modelled correctly. The pull of gravity decays with the square of the distance, as it should be. The thing is, since there isn't anything else apart from the planet, you will always feel the pull, regardless of distance. Granted, this pull will be negligible when you're far enough away, but since there's nothing else to orbit, you will still feel it a bit. I reckon we need instrumentation in the UI to display orbital information... this way it'll be easier to know what's going on. Cheers

[QUOTE=HarvesteR;31038074] * I added a Sound Normalizer to the game, that will make the volume levels stick to a maximum. So having 300 boosters won't blow your speakers anymore. This works by analysing the sound peaks at each frame, and reducing the volume in proportion to how much it was over the threshold. So it still sounds as if it would be really really loud, but it doesn't blow the speakers. [/QUOTE] Is this going to affect performance?

It doesn't have ENOUGH pull, or any at all! You can't enter a closed orbit, As someone said, it just looks like an elliptic, only instead of going WAY out and coming past the planet at an insane speed on the other side, you'll go out until you stop, and fall straight back down Still fun as shit though

[QUOTE=TheTalon;31038008][IMG]http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y37/SaborWolf/kerbalnograv.jpg[/IMG] It would be nice to be able to get into a closed orbit, in Kerbal, and actually have to do a De-Orbit burn to fall back to the surface. As it is now, I don't think that's possible[/QUOTE] It's juuuuust about possible, but very hard. The circumference of the planet is about [B]3 769 KM. [/B] In my last orbit, I managed to cover around [B]2500 KM.[/B] If I'd had more fuel, I could have extended the orbit. A simple way of doing it is to go straight up and begin to level off almost straight, with a quite high altitude - and from then just make sure that you're going quite fast, and your altitude is [B]decreasing.[/B] This will cause you to fall towards that planet but miss, hence, orbit.

[QUOTE=scout1;31038090]Is this going to affect performance?[/QUOTE] I thought it would, but surpringly, it didn't... it's a really simple script. Cheers

[QUOTE=TheTalon;31038008][IMG]http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y37/SaborWolf/kerbalnograv.jpg[/IMG] It would be nice to be able to get into a closed orbit, in Kerbal, and actually have to do a De-Orbit burn to fall back to the surface. As it is now, I don't think that's possible[/QUOTE] It takes some doing, but it is possible, I've done two orbits of Kerbal before I messed up my orbit and went tumbling down.

How do you guys feel after you've gotten this wave of support?

[QUOTE=Wavenarra;31038131]It's juuuuust about possible, but very hard. The circumference of the planet is about [B]3 769 KM. [/B] In my last orbit, I managed to cover around [B]2500 KM.[/B] If I'd had more fuel, I could have extended the orbit. A simple way of doing it is to go straight up and begin to level off almost straight, with a quite high altitude - and from then just make sure that you're going quite fast, and your altitude is [B]decreasing.[/B] This will cause you to fall towards that planet but miss, hence, orbit.[/QUOTE] I don't know if that's possible... It would be nice to get an official word on it. I know that it would be wise to have some fuel left to do a burn right at the perigee to even out the orbit. I'm going to keep trying Also, for an added feature idea. A couple Autopilot buttons to turn and maybe possibly hold the ship at Prograde and Retrograde angles

[QUOTE=TheTalon;31038171]I don't know if that's possible... It would be nice to get an official word on it. I know that it would be wise to have some fuel left to do a burn right at the perigee to even out the orbit. I'm going to keep trying[/QUOTE] I do remember Harvester talking about how to get into orbit on his forums, but i've done it (a few times). I am sure he has the definitive answer you seek.

[QUOTE=HarvesteR;31038074]Ok, short update here: I did a few more things. * I added a Sound Normalizer to the game, that will make the volume levels stick to a maximum. So having 300 boosters won't blow your speakers anymore. This works by analysing the sound peaks at each frame, and reducing the volume in proportion to how much it was over the threshold. So it still sounds as if it would be really really loud, but it doesn't blow the speakers. * I also tweaked the attachment scheme. Now the wobble is more controlled. (I hadn't realized there was such an ugly wobble with several tanks stacked under a tricoupler) Next, I'll add some more settings to the settings.cfg file, to allow toggling the sound normalizer, and ajust it's parameters, like threshold and responsiveness. About the gravitational pull, it is modelled correctly. The pull of gravity decays with the square of the distance, as it should be. The thing is, since there isn't anything else apart from the planet, you will always feel the pull, regardless of distance. Granted, this pull will be negligible when you're far enough away, but since there's nothing else to orbit, you will still feel it a bit. I reckon we need instrumentation in the UI to display orbital information... this way it'll be easier to know what's going on. Cheers[/QUOTE] Orbital instrumentation is a must. Also, is there a plan to make it easier to control rockets? They kind of sway wildly in orbit, and there's a lack of a functional killrot. SAS sort of does the job, but then it starts re-aligning me to face upwards.

I managed to achieve a highly eccentric orbit just by watching the altitude meter as I burned towards the horizon (after I'd left the atmosphere), and when the altimeter began leveling out, so to speak, I stopped the burn. Sure enough, it was an orbit and the lowest altitude was 100km and the highest was 360km.

[QUOTE=TheTalon;31038171]I don't know if that's possible... It would be nice to get an official word on it. I know that it would be wise to have some fuel left to do a burn right at the perigee to even out the orbit. I'm going to keep trying Also, for an added feature idea. A couple Autopilot buttons to turn and maybe possibly hold the ship at Prograde and Retrograde angles[/QUOTE] Yeah, you need to turn prograde to get the orbit. Autopilot would be quite nice to have, but it isn't a necessity.

You could make somewhat a similar thing to what Orbiter uses for its orbital display information. You can do away with all the numbers and make it a visual cue only, and it's extremely easy to understand just at a first glimpse [img]http://www.flytandem.com/orbiter/tutorials/lunar_return/2.jpg[/img] The white line is the planet surface, the green line, which changes depending on your speed and angle, is your orbit trajectory, and the green vertical line is your position in the orbit

[QUOTE=Wavenarra;31038209]Orbital instrumentation is a must. Also, is there a plan to make it easier to control rockets? They kind of sway wildly in orbit, and there's a lack of a functional killrot. SAS sort of does the job, but then it starts re-aligning me to face upwards.[/QUOTE] Well, Killrot does exactly that. It completely stops the ship from rotating. The thing is that when you're orbiting, you have to rotate a bit to keep facing the "horizon". What's really lacking is a "prograde hold" SAS mode. I did one more thing. I added another option to the settings file to allow specifying a number of "skip samples" for the sound normalizer. Just in case it gets heavy on some computers, you can now specify how many samples to skip. By default, it's set at 0, which means it'll read every sample. If you set it to 1, it'll skip every other sample. Set it to 2, it'll skip 2 in every 3 samples, and so on. Cheers EDIT: Ahh yes, I did one more thing. I've tweaked the sound falloff scale, and now we can hear the explosions!

[QUOTE=HarvesteR;31038291]Well, Killrot does exactly that. It completely stops the ship from rotating. The thing is that when you're orbiting, you have to rotate a bit to keep facing the "horizon". What's really lacking is a "prograde hold" SAS mode. I did one more thing. I added another option to the settings file to allow specifying a number of "skip samples" for the sound normalizer. Just in case it gets heavy on some computers, you can now specify how many samples to skip. By default, it's set at 0, which means it'll read every sample. If you set it to 1, it'll skip every other sample. Set it to 2, it'll skip 2 in every 3 samples, and so on. Cheers[/QUOTE] Keep facing the horizon? Wut. Killrot should entirely stop all rotation of the ship. :v

I kinda hope this game has some kind of multiplayer sometime in the future.. Two players competing to build the best ship in the least around of money to reach a certain objective. (Height etc) Would be fun.

[QUOTE=HarvesteR;31038291]What's really lacking is a [b]"prograde hold"[/b] SAS mode.[/quote] Yes, definitely. Perhaps retrograde too? And I hope that this will be added to the regular SAS module including the command pod as well.

I just finished this rocket finally. I call her, The Orbitnator (ironically though it isn't able to orbit) In all her Preflight Glory: [img]http://gyazo.com/a24c6e0f1f88297146d6f717ae8127b0.png[/img] [img]http://gyazo.com/6cf5c2187009cadfefbab455190c9d37.png[/img] Ok this needs some explaining, to the untrained eye it looks like there is sprouts of crap coming out the side. This is the Gantry - you heard me right, it needs it's own gantry or it breaks up before take off. The "Arms" retract at the same time the first pairs of engines fire. Great balls of fire: [img]http://gyazo.com/85f7118d430e990943d1887f3d2fdff6.png[/img] [img]http://gyazo.com/667985aa18fdfc599f8dbc338ee93f52.png[/img] Sexy Seperation [img]http://gyazo.com/5e30cd9123896fd1d8fad1244652b899.png[/img] [img]http://gyazo.com/56a760ff940c3488c8566e566568da8b.png[/img] It's all so I can slowly power this friggin' heavy tube into space [img]http://gyazo.com/4729088fd1a1ba19a01bc1825f823d99.png[/img] [img]http://gyazo.com/bb3715a3eae87c370a396e64aa02980c.png[/img] I've posted a simular image, and the speeds arn't record breaking, but I got this piece of junk into space and it made me happy :D [img]http://gyazo.com/da0113780ea28df32ee42186e908f657.png[/img] (them too apparently) [editline]11th July 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=Lyoko774;31038344]I kinda hope this game has some kind of multiplayer sometime in the future.. Two players competing to build the best ship in the least around of money to reach a certain objective. (Height etc) Would be fun.[/QUOTE] Or alternatively find a way to build a cheaper rocket that crashes into your opponents rocket. Aggressive space exploration.

I got to 200k, haven't gotten any higher with a more complex design.