Kerbal Space Program

I haven't played this in a while and at the moment I'm just relearning the physics... By trying to break the land speed record :D. Can anyone recommend a good place to do this as I Just add a little rocket to taxi onto the green and then gun it from there...
 
Also, I have been wondering for the longest time about fuel efficiency. Will i travel further burning at half throttle, compared to st full throttle? Similar to real life in a car ( diminishing returns etc)
 
I know they said that they fixed the SAS, but I honestly cant see any difference with the planes I have used. They still drift away from the orientation I try to hold them in.

Also, I have found out why I'm having so much trouble keeping my plane level at 30,000m at high speed, and that is because Kerbin is tiny compared to Earth. Earth's circumference at the equator isa smidge over 40,000km whereas Kerbin's circumfrence is only 3770km. When you're going at 2880m/s you could go round the entire planet in twenty minutes, so you have to constantly pitch downwards a huge amount just to keep your altitude level.



almoststew1990 said:
I haven't played this in a while and at the moment I'm just relearning the physics... By trying to break the land speed record :D. Can anyone recommend a good place to do this as I Just add a little rocket to taxi onto the green and then gun it from there...
Click to expand...

There isnt really a 'good' place to do it, but the only smooth place I found for my land speed record was the runway it starts you on in the spaceplane hanger. If you need some extra space then the best thing to do is go perpendicular to the runway (not sure which direction is best). The path will be bumpier, but you will have more than a mile to break the record.

It is definitely possible to break the land speed record on the runway. I think I was reaching ~400m/s (900mph) by the end of the runway with some of my more ridiculous designs, although if you spam separatrons you can easily go much faster than that. When I took my runway design onto the bumpy ground parrallel to the runway I hit 448m/s (1002mph) before running out of fuel

almoststew1990 said:
Also, I have been wondering for the longest time about fuel efficiency. Will i travel further burning at half throttle, compared to st full throttle? Similar to real life in a car ( diminishing returns etc)
Click to expand...

As far as i know the engines are linearly efficient, so if you are in a vacuum you will get exactly the same economy no matter what you set the throttle to. however, in the atmosphere you have drag to take into account. according to the wiki, going at your terminal velocity for the altitude you are at will yield the best fuel economy. I can never remember the numbers so if i'm struggling to get something into orbit I'll check the numbers on the wiki
 
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28k "orbit" on jet engines alone, man that would take next to no rocket deltaV to raise it up out the atmosphere.
 
That's slightly surprising about the efficiency! I assumed the engines would run more efficiently at half throttle, not taking atmosphere into account, like a car engine, as well as wind resistance limiting things (ie 100hp gets you to 100mph, 200hp gets you to 150mph, 300hp gets you to 175mph because of wind resistance in the atmosphere...)


I must be doing something wrong with my land speed record then as I seem to be maxing out at 172m/s... Moar power?
 
Those jet engines are most efficient between 10 and 20km. (Depending on your airflow)

Flying just above the ground in a jet gets around 200m/s in this game, on the ground you'll likely be a bit slower. But that sounds about right on jet engine.
 
First of all, you're using the wrong fuel tank.
Jet engines do not need oxygen.
Secondly you need far more air intakes to go higher, even with Los you still won't get above ~32k on jet engines alone.

For orbit you need jet engines to egg alttitude and pick up as much speed as possible, you then fire a rocket engine and shut down jet engines for the final push into space.
 
Thanks for the help.

When you say the wrong tank, what do you mean? My jet works fine, so I am assuming that if I used the jet fuel tank, my Ship would be lighter and therefore better etc.

I'm confused by point 2 and 3. Do you mean jet engines do not need an air intake for normal plane altitudes but do need lots of air intakes when higher in the atmosphere where there is 'less air'?

Maybe I'll try a combination of jet and rocket...
 
That fuel tank is for a rocket so carries fuel and oxidiser, the jet engines won't use oxidiser so you are carrying excess weight for no reason, jet engines have to get air from the atmosphere.

Yes low down jet engines do not need air a intakes, the higher you go the more air intakes you need.
 
If you were going by my design (I cant see the picture so I'm guessing here) then it probably isnt the best example. I went for a rocket fuel tank rather than a jet fuel tank because I used very little of the liquid fuel on the jet engine before switching over to my not very easy to see rocket engines (~18 of the little red radial ones). The smallest jet fuel only tank I could find had 80 fuel which was far more than ~I used before getting bored and switching to the rocket engines so i just used the jet fuel (liquid fuel) from the rocket engine's tank


since Glaucus seems to be making planes I'll start up a couple of leaderboard to see if anyone else is interested. Please shout at me if you made a plane and I missed it


30km stock parts speed challenge overall
1. 2714m/s @ 30,500m by Reaper 392 - HMS Exploiter
2. 2187.8m/s @ 28,000m by Glaucus in Untitled Space craft

30km stock parts speed challenge jets only
1. 2187.8m/s @ 28,000m by Glaucus in Untitled Space craft

Seriously, name your ship Glaucus :p
I'll get a screenie of my ship when i'm feeling less ill


Having seen some very impressive things on the KSP forums i am going to make three requests

1. Please dont spam decouplers (the link is well worth a read)
2. Please don't spam separatrons
3. Please dont take advantage of the bug where you went super fast by turning the old ASAS on and the control surfaces flapped like crazy, giving you super speed
 
He-he usually only get named once proved useful for something and these are just play things,. When ii develop landers for duna etc, they get named, mostly boring names like DunaProbe.
Or if I want to know how many times I've tweaked in the VaB thenyoull see mk17 probably a s the first 16 disentagrated.
 
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They seem to have changed the jet mechanics slightly in 2.1. Just rebuilt a Jet that I know could easily go over 2km/s at 30km in 2.0 but I can't get over 1800 without the engines crapping out!
 
I lost my personal webspace with Aquiss internet so finally signed up to imgur so i can post pics easier now.

Cool timed shot
d469h5X.png

My time wasting... Rather large orbit, and this isn't the furthest you can orbit either.
http://i.imgur.com/pa0e9xf.png
Resize image please.

Airplane Alt and speed challenge? 37k and 2266m/s
zs55XXS.png
 
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Put some geo stationery satelites up and then realised why I gave up on that before, it's impossible to get geo stationery due to errors. So they all move about after a while.
 
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