point in right direction with getting to space

[Apigeonslurry]

right so before todays update my rocket reached space i have 3 boosters that detach but today it seems after update i get to orbit almost space and rocket starts doing flips like it wants to go higher but cant almost like its hitting a invisible wall/ceiling ive put some valves ect on my pipes for oxygen and hydrogen to try keep high pressure im not running out of speed as it always keeps higher than 160 (just using simple dial at moment to keep track) but any help would be greatly appreciated

[Teamkiller]

I know what you need. Points an commas. I have some spare, take it : ................. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,

[4Floaters]

Try going sideways some, add a artificial horizon to your craft and after about 6-10k try going to 10 degree mark and see if that helps

[ElfBossHogg]

Originally posted by 4Floaters:

Try going sideways some, add a artificial horizon to your craft and after about 6-10k try going to 10 degree mark and see if that helps

That's something I'm curious about but I haven't seen any notes from the developers: In order to maintain orbit do you have to transition to a "horizontal trajectory" once you reach space in order to generate enough speed to mimic an actual orbit?

Right now all creators seem to be going straight up and then with gravity they eventually get pulled back down to the planet. Have the devs modelled actual orbital mechanics where to maintain altitude you generate enough"speed across the ground" such that you don't need constant vertical thrust?

My thoughts are no and the Space DLC is just an UP/DOWN simulator.

[4Floaters]

So just playing around today it seems orbital speed not just vertical speed *can / might* help but not required, solids for example can just punch through.
I have a craft on the workshop called the pogo medium where I was struggling to get it to space until I added some horizontal speed, but it could be any number of factors that led that including really poor craft design, but I have another called the pogo small that can carry more weight and seemed to just go vertical.
Both were just testing to see how much weight or even if a single liquid fueled rocket could get to space

[Anwaan]

Originally posted by ElfBossHogg:

Originally posted by 4Floaters:

Try going sideways some, add a artificial horizon to your craft and after about 6-10k try going to 10 degree mark and see if that helps

That's something I'm curious about but I haven't seen any notes from the developers: In order to maintain orbit do you have to transition to a "horizontal trajectory" once you reach space in order to generate enough speed to mimic an actual orbit?

Right now all creators seem to be going straight up and then with gravity they eventually get pulled back down to the planet. Have the devs modelled actual orbital mechanics where to maintain altitude you generate enough"speed across the ground" such that you can don't need constant vertical thrust?

My thoughts are no and the Space DLC is just an UP/DOWN simulator.

They claim there is orbital mechanics. They also claim you hit geostationary at 300k. But since an altimeter and speedometer stops working when you hit "space," there doesn't seem to be any way of knowing where geostationary is. I've looked at the astronomy sensor but all it puts out are 3d coordinates in a -1 to 1 format for each plane. It'll take someone much better at math than I am to decipher that.

[Nitty_Gritty1]

there are now a few astronomy sensors to altitude calculators on the workshop.

[ElfBossHogg]

I bite the bullet again and reupped for the Space DLC as I'm curious. I used the Venator Space craft from the Workshop and installed the Astronomy sensor along with a MC that calculates distance to Moon, Distance to Earth and "speed" in space. I launched in to space with infinite fuel and began a progressive profile where I was eventually boosting horizontally in space at around 100 km. I also installed an artificial horizon and it still worked. I had the artificial horizon exactly at 0' for a large amount of the burn in space.

The results...

I cut the main thrusters to put me in to a drift and it seemed to settle in to a max speed of 500 m/s calculated. From there it slowly began to decrease where after about 5 minutes I was down to 150 m/s calculated at a distance of 195k from earth, 293k from moon. The distance to earth was slowly climbing still as I'm thinking the value is based on a distance from centre of map. My distance to Moon slowly decreased. It appeared that I was in "orbit" at about 195k. I was "cycling" around the world map at that time. The calculate speed declined very slowly where after 20 minutes it was at 22 m/s. The distance from earth was still increasing but at a slower rate. At no time though was I "plunging to earth" from gravity. For all intents I was in a relatively "stable" orbit. Not perfect as the distance kept increasing as I circled the map but stable.

It appears there may be some sort of orbital mechanics in play that takes in to account horizontal speed. I am able to maintain a position in space without any thrust by applying horizontal speed in the ascent profile. I'm going to continue to let it play out and see what happens.

[superosh]

@ElfBossHogg
Thanks for the details. This was a good read.
Maybe...depends how they will treat the current critical issues, I might buy this, too.
Otherwise I would stay with "Orbiter Space Flight Simulator".
But thanks again...nice details.

[Anwaan]

Thanks Hogg. Good info. I haven't been able to test much because after a dozen or so tests returning to the bench, my game bugs out with the disappearing vehicle, alt-f4 glitch. I need to dig into the astronomy MC and see how they did it.

[ElfBossHogg]

Test didn't finish as planned... after about 40 mins speed was registering around 3 m/s and calculated distance from earth was around 270km. I made the "wrong" decision to vacate my seat to see if I was floating... I ended up being ejected from an enclosed cabin and floating away. I tried using fire extinguisher to re-enter... ran out of fuel. Tried teleport... ended up in the right location but in the ocean. Tried warping.... couldn't find the space craft.

My last observations just before I left my seat...

I made the decision to jettison the booster so that I was just a lander floating in space with RCS if necessary. It was a slow drift separation. The final speed I saw was 3 m/s but I was still slowly gaining distance from earth approaching a calculated distance of around ~270km. I recall something about 300km being some sort of possible Lagrange point so I'm wondering if the speed would eventually reduce to 0 m/s at 300km.

Going to try launching again and repeat.

[Anwaan]

I'm curious how long it took to reach that point? Just based on math alone if you could maintain a constant 500 m/s it should take 10 minutes in a straight line to reach 300k, considerably longer going horizontal. I doubt there's any sort of oberth effect simulated, but interested to hear your results.

[superosh]

> I'm wondering if the speed would eventually reduce to 0 m/s at 300km.
I believe that was the plan, to have a "geo-orbit" at 300 km.
So we could park there and try to "build" a space-station (aka connecting vehicles together).
Maybe this is the only area to EVA ? This would be a terrible limitation imo.

[Anwaan]

Originally posted by superosh:

> I'm wondering if the speed would eventually reduce to 0 m/s at 300km.
I believe that was the plan, to have a "geo-orbit" at 300 km.
So we could park there and try to "build" a space-station (aka connecting vehicles together).
Maybe this is the only area to EVA ? This would be a terrible limitation imo.

Yes, yes it would. And very Geometa.

[ElfBossHogg]

2nd Test started... orbital profile with steady progression from vertical to horizontal...
very much KSP style. :) Horizontal speed run from 55km to 60km where engine was cutoff. Drift speed settled at 500 m/s calculated. Distance from Earth increasing quickly... at 4 mins after engine shutdown speed is 501 m/s calculated and at altitude of 118km. Lunar Approach speed indicates 300 m/s but is steadily dropping.

At 9 min in I made the decision to deflect nose down and apply booster to reduced Lunar Approach speed to 0 m/s. After burn approach speed returned to about 160 m/s from original 300 m/s as it was imparting a bit of horizontal speed as well.

At 16 min mark I did another deflection burn but at a greater angle inwards to reduce Lunar Approach Speed to 0/ms... calculated alt was 242km. Brought Lunar Approach speed to 0 m/s and then it returned to around 50 m/s. Calculated speed from MC was 189 m/s after correction burn. Not going to make any more corrections and just let it run.

***Just as notation.. with current trajectory I have the nose of the spaceship directly at 0 on the artificial horizon and from what I can tell I'm running a very close North to South transition across the planet map. From the Astronomy Sensor x is reading -1, y is -0.034 and decreasing, z is ~0.54 and staying relatively stable. y is making the most movement. Now at -0.14 on y after 1 minute since last reading... currently right above the centre of Sawyer Island.

At 30 minutes... reading calculated distance of 269.3km from Earth and 220.6 km from Moon. Lunar Approach speed is 13 m/s and calculate speed is 35 m/s.

Continuing test and will report when Lunar Approach speed or Calculated Speed of Vehicle reaches 0 m/s.

[ElfBossHogg]

Originally posted by superosh:

> I'm wondering if the speed would eventually reduce to 0 m/s at 300km.
I believe that was the plan, to have a "geo-orbit" at 300 km.
So we could park there and try to "build" a space-station (aka connecting vehicles together).
Maybe this is the only area to EVA ? This would be a terrible limitation imo.

Hope to know shortly. 38 mins in on second test. The last part may take a bit based on what I'm seeing :)