Taken a bit of a break after my Kyoto photo processing bonanza; and what better way to wind down than by shouting obscenities at space craft.
As is so often the case, it’s The Son’s fault; because he pointed me in the direction of the Kerbal Space Program. Part game, part simulator, complete time absorber.
KSP has been under development for some time and is regularly updated. As of now there is a sandbox mode where all components are available to you; and a career mode where you start with limited components and conduct science in space to garner points that will foster research into new components. Under advice, I chose the latter, and it was a good decision because even with limited components you can get yourself into serious trouble; or at least I did.
Your role is to manage the space program for the Kerbals, a race that live on the planet Kerbin and have a conveniently interesting solar system for you to explore. Potential Kerbal astronauts only have two characteristic, courage and stupidity; and it doesn’t seem to make any difference as to the skills of any unfortunate astronaut that I load into one of my rockets; the stupidity of flight control (me) is always the main problem.
Anyway, off to the Vehicle Assembly Building to build a rocket.
On the left are a series of tabs containing available parts. The descriptions of these make for good reading and are a light relief from the horrors that await.
*New breakthroughs at FLOOYD Dynamics have made the FTX Fuel Duct a reality. Altough criticized by some as being no more than ‘a sewage pipe painted yellow’, most agree that the yellow is a relatively nice color, and that fuel lines are indeed able to pump fuel from side-mounted fuel tanks.
Although criticized by some due to it’s not unsignificant use of so-called “pieces found lying about”, the LV-T series has proven itself as a comparatively reliable engine. The T30 model boasts a failure ratio below the 50% mark. This has been considered a major improvement over previous models by engineers and LV-T enthusiasts.
While considered by some to be little more than “a trash bin full o’ boom”, The RT-10 is used in many space programs, whenever the need to save cash is greater than the need to keep astronauts alive.*
Aside from the humour, rocket construction is a complex task and you are heading for many failures along the way. My first attempt just collapsed on the launchpad.
But after some experimentation, I got the hang of it and soon I had a rocket into space, with the capsule returning safely to earth. How we celebrated. Next step was to put a rocket into orbit around Earth, sorry Kerbin, and that is when the fun really started.
You have to launch and place your craft in a suitable angle at a suitable height, and then switch to an orbit map and plot one or more manoeuvres that will place you into orbit at the height you desire.
Once planned, you will then be shown the direction in which to point your ship and the duration of burn then required to achieve orbit. You will be introduced to apoapsis and periapsis and you start to understand that, underneath the silly characters and jokey descriptions, this is a very detailed stimulator. It took me several failed mission before I achieved orbit (remembering to keep enough fuel to return).
Next step, the moon, or Mun which is one of the two moons of Kerbin. Just getting there required playing around with rocket design such that there would enough fuel. Then I had to place rocket in Kerbin orbit before plotting a course that would intercept with the Mun; more brain ache. But finally, Scientific Sid blasted off on its historic mission.
Booster separation:
After many tries (you can reset the flight to the launchpad at any time, I did this a lot) I finally achieved orbit around the moon! A proud moment for all of Kerbin! A couple of orbits to complete some science experiments, including an EVA by the single crew member, and it was time to go home. So a trajectory was set and the whole country sat back to enjoy the flight, which didn’t last long because you necessarily can accelerate time. It also didn’t last long because the fuel ran out; I just had enough to put the remains of Scientific Sid in orbit, 3 million miles above the home planet. Astronauts seem to have an endless supply of oxygen and sandwiches, so I will launch a rescue mission at some point in the future; once I have the tech and the ability.
Never mind, bring in another rather nervous looking volunteer and its off to Mun again, this time with landing legs, technology acquired following the last mission. In no time at all (several hours and many attempts), we were back in orbit around the moon.
Fortunately I had by this time discovered the quick save key; which meant I was able to save my position during the descent to the surface and make several attempts at the landing; those Apollo guys deserve some respect. But finally, landing! And a flag!!
Quite ridiculous how pleased I felt with myself; and she who must be obeyed seemed to agree with this assessment when I told her excitedly what I had done (the look could be summarised as withering disdain mixed with pity).
Of course the joy was short lived. My rather chaotic landing routine had emptied the fuel and there was no way this little Kerbal was going home any time soon. Another rescue mission required.
Before long I will have stranded astronauts all over the solar system. For there is a sun, seven planets and nine moons; all waiting to be crashed into. As you progress you can build space stations (docking looks like fun), bases on other planets, rovers; and there is a separate building dedicated to the construction of winged craft so a space shuttle is a possibility. There is a lot to do, the next update is coming very soon and KSP only costs $27 for Mac, Windows or Linux. There is also a demo version if you are unsure.
If you do indulge, I strongly recommend the videos from Scott Manley; invaluable help for the beginner as well as covering more advanced topics. This is his intro video:
Right, must get back to it; time to set the controls for the heart of the sun.
Comments 🔗
2013-12-14| Ray Walton saysYes you know me too well. I love the look of this so may well be soon working at rescuing your poor stranded Kerbins. Is there maybe an on-line mass participation system like they had with games like WoW so folk can work together to help rescue missions and joint effort missions too ?
2013-12-14| Spike saysThere is already a multi-player add-on (there are a load of mods: http://kerbalspaceport.com/), and the development team have defined it as something they want to include in a future release. One of the problems is handling time, with different players accelerating time at different times and to differing extents. Meantime there is enough to keep you busy.
2013-12-14| Spike saysI see the Chinese have landed on the moon today; they must be annoyed that I got there a day early and stole their thunder.
2013-12-14| Camberley saysRead this this morning. Made the inevitable purchase and Saturday just vanished. I suspect Sunday will go the same way.
2013-12-14| Andrew saysThis sounds like an apprenticeship for politicians…leave them stranded, fuck everything up and re-emerge as as wonderful leader….
2013-12-15| Spike saysExpect you have already established several colonies and planted flags everywhere.
2013-12-15| Camberley saysIf only! I expect this will take up a lot of my time for a while now. It is a long way from that little orbit program we knock up in Holland.