launch a rover in saturn's planet titan
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Altaïr
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Hi and welcome to the forum ASRO 
The challenge could be interesting, but TtTOtW is right. That's an ambitious mission that requires some time to design, to perform... It's fast and easy for you to write it, but we have to do the hard part then. Because of this, a newcomer that comes with a one-line super challenge is generally not took in serious.
At the minimum you should try some of the other challenges first. For example the drag challenge is a quick one to try, and it's rather easy. The Curiosity challenge is an easiest variant of yours, but still a good challenge. Give it a try, show us what you have, and we will take your harder challenge in serious after that
The challenge could be interesting, but TtTOtW is right. That's an ambitious mission that requires some time to design, to perform... It's fast and easy for you to write it, but we have to do the hard part then. Because of this, a newcomer that comes with a one-line super challenge is generally not took in serious.
At the minimum you should try some of the other challenges first. For example the drag challenge is a quick one to try, and it's rather easy. The Curiosity challenge is an easiest variant of yours, but still a good challenge. Give it a try, show us what you have, and we will take your harder challenge in serious after that
Horus Lupercal
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Altaïr
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That's what I thought, but even with previous challenges that were asked like the Grand Tour or the galilean Tour (all jovian moons), I linked people to the thread where I did it, but strangely I saw none of them duplicate my mission. This is really weird, there were lots of screenshots that allowed to recreate the rocket, the trajectories I use are explained... I wonder what issue prevented them to do it. I must say I'm really worried about that
Altaïr
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Because of you and others scaring the noobies with your high standards.
.
But because of this that community became less and less welcoming towards newcomers, which is kinda sad. I remember that when I started myself I was far from being as competent as now. It happened that I have a look at some of my old builds and screamed "What?! Did I really design that shit? How in hell could I call this light and efficient?!"
Since then I improved, and I myself shared a lot of knowledge to help the whole community, but I wasn't imagining it would turn that way. I kinda miss the time when this community was more friendly and casual...
Exactly the same here, my very first rockets were squares with 50 Boosters and I had to detach all 50 of them at 1000 m height. Back then I used to believe that 'impulse' was the key to Space. It was here where I learned to design better rockets (and to understand the word 'impulse' does not even exists in space argot).
So do I. Sometimes people aren't trying to prove they are the best, or that they have the best rockets. Sometimes you just wanna play the game. I mean, that's what it is: a game, a fucking game.
And to read that now is not enough to land all parts on Earth to call a rocket reusable (just for putting a recent example), but that now you have to recover, reassemble, refuel and relaunch the same rocket to call it Reusable is kinda frustrating.
I mean this could be good as a challenge. But not as the standard for the Forum, cause this standard is really high even for advanced players. My case: this new rule killed my gaming experience, I'm not even 'recovering' stages now, cause what's the point? They are not reusable anymore.
So do I. Sometimes people aren't trying to prove they are the best, or that they have the best rockets. Sometimes you just wanna play the game. I mean, that's what it is: a game, a fucking game.
And to read that now is not enough to land all parts on Earth to call a rocket reusable (just for putting a recent example), but that now you have to recover, reassemble, refuel and relaunch the same rocket to call it Reusable is kinda frustrating.
I mean this could be good as a challenge. But not as the standard for the Forum, cause this standard is really high even for advanced players. My case: this new rule killed my gaming experience, I'm not even 'recovering' stages now, cause what's the point? They are not reusable anymore.
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Some may want to split hairs that the former is 'recoverable' and the latter is 'reuseable'.
Doesn't change the fact that I only managed to do the latter for the first time a few days ago. (but it was on a low gravity planet with a thick atmosphere, not Earth! I haven't gotten that far yet.)
I totally agree that to expect people to do the latter outside of challenges is taking it too far....
Feels bad.
Doesn't change the fact that I only managed to do the latter for the first time a few days ago. (but it was on a low gravity planet with a thick atmosphere, not Earth!
I haven't gotten that far yet.)I totally agree that to expect people to do the latter outside of challenges is taking it too far....
Feels bad.
Last edited:
Horus Lupercal
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I think the forum has always been a more daunting place to start off, because of not just the higher standard but also because it is so small and there's nowhere to hide. There's less to look at and so things get scrutinised much more.
Before I made my profile up here, I was actually kinda nervous about making one and posting/contributing/asking questions because everyone knew each other and the builds were waaay beyond what I was capable of.
Example, like, you're talking noob MOAR BOOSTAz rockets, check out the first 'heavy lift' rocket I built after purchasing the DLC:
Check out the TWR on this puppy...
Granted, this is without a payload but I was only getting 150t to LEO with it. But, it's what I was using and managed to assemble my original space station (as seen as the staging area in my first videos) with it. Even back then I didn't want to share it because it's shit.
I just didn't know why it was shit and how I'd make it better.
And it was that fact that was why I joined. I was making my now infamous spreadsheet thanks to Scott Manleys video, but needed to speak to actual people about things to make it work properly. And back then (as it is now) that help was freely and patiently given (they know who they were).
Is the forum even less welcoming now? You could argue both ways, and I've said my piece elsewhere on the subject. But I still genuinely do not think that it is overtly and unnecessarily toxic. For every 'hitpiece', there's 10 posts helping people out or offering re-builds. I still believe here is the best place to learn, even if that does mean it has leant slightly away from 'casual' usage towards more 'serious' territory. I wouldn't say entirely though, there is still a vast amount of 'comedy builds' mixed in with the ruthless efficiency.
I'm not sure it became the standard across the forum. But then, I also don't see why that is an issue. It's just a definition man. What is so wrong with saying 'returnable' if that is what your spent stages do? It doesn't make your rockets worse or your builds pointless and there's no need for such melodrama over it. Personally I think your returned stages are impressive as fuck, especially the larger ones.
It's the same as if a rocket only works with infinite fuel or the drag glitch. Doesn't make a rocket pointless if that is what it does and how you use it. But you can (if you wish) also strive to do better to make a legal build and there are many, many people here willing to not only help out, but from a position of real knowledge rather than TWR 2 hearsay, a fact that makes this place unique.
The only time I have an issue with such rockets is when they try to make claims and undermine work people have done on making things legal or abide by a definition like 'smallest to place' or 'most weight to location' etc. That's not to say 'illegal' rockets are crap either.
But they shouldn't be placed in a box with legal builds and the same goes with re-use/return. The level of planning, building and execution are totally different. It's not to say one is totally pointless because the other exists. But they should be kept separate, as they are separate from 'throwaway' builds, in recognition of the additional complexity required without it being taken offensively or diminishing the work that's being done.
What I'm trying to say (in my long form way) is thus. I very, very rarely land or recover things in flight. Boosters, ETs, spent stages, I drop the lot and leave them to smash into the ground. I also don't plan on de-orbiting spent stages after use and just 'self destruct' them once the injection stage has separated. That doesn't mean when I see Altair de-orbit everything because he doesn't like orbital debris or using the destroy parts function, that it suddenly renders my rocket obsolete. It doesn't mean when I watch Blazer landing 500t boosters or Cosmo assembling 1.5km long colony ships that I suddenly feel inadequate because I've wasted 80% of everything that's ever left my launchpad. And also not just because I can do total re-useability and view all this from some sort of technical 'superiority'.
Far from it.
It's because I know that a definition is an objective standard to attain, not a personal attack on someones abilities, and shouldn't be viewed as such. Some people can do it, some people can't do it yet and that's as deep as it goes.
Yes, I definitely think we should ban you. Someone get the hammer!
From a personal perspective of how friendly and open the forum was/is, I'll say this. I've been visiting for 2 years and a member for over 18 months. Some people reading this I consider as not just fellow gamers and intellectuals, but also friends whom with I chat with on and offline about more than just engines and firearms.
But before the present day, waay before I became the mememaster, and even before the rise of Horus Wafflecal, I was just a tourist on zero messages, zero likes and the first thing I did was PM TtTOtW and Altair asking questions. One was about multi-engine ISP calculations (a concept that i'd not had any luck with anywhere else), the other was about where I should post the first iteration of my spreadsheet. You can imagine to whom each message went.
At no point then or in the 3100 messages (some of which has been pretty damn controversial) since have they (or anyone else for that matter) been reluctant, rude, dismissive or anything other than completely helpful towards me.
The first direct message I got on here was from Mr/ Ambition himself handing me an unsolicited (and pretty difficult) rover challenge. But it wasn't in a rude, or 'you think you know rovers? I'm the rover king, try and match me n00b' way. It was a 'you're decent, but you can be better. Here is how' way. And prove me wrong, but for all of his...zealotry...for ambition and occasional lack of tact, you'd be hard pressed to find occasions where he is being an uncalled for dick about it. And I know for a fact the amount of time he puts into improving people around here. Maybe it's a bit too forced, but I'll never say it's from a position of malice of snobbish superiority.
The forum isn't perfect. Could it do with a bit of a throttle back, reduce the pressure a bit so we can go further up? Yeah.
But toxic? Nah. I wouldn't come on here day in, day out if it was.
Before I made my profile up here, I was actually kinda nervous about making one and posting/contributing/asking questions because everyone knew each other and the builds were waaay beyond what I was capable of.
Example, like, you're talking noob MOAR BOOSTAz rockets, check out the first 'heavy lift' rocket I built after purchasing the DLC:
Check out the TWR on this puppy...
Granted, this is without a payload but I was only getting 150t to LEO with it. But, it's what I was using and managed to assemble my original space station (as seen as the staging area in my first videos) with it. Even back then I didn't want to share it because it's shit.
I just didn't know why it was shit and how I'd make it better.
And it was that fact that was why I joined. I was making my now infamous spreadsheet thanks to Scott Manleys video, but needed to speak to actual people about things to make it work properly. And back then (as it is now) that help was freely and patiently given (they know who they were).
Is the forum even less welcoming now? You could argue both ways, and I've said my piece elsewhere on the subject. But I still genuinely do not think that it is overtly and unnecessarily toxic. For every 'hitpiece', there's 10 posts helping people out or offering re-builds. I still believe here is the best place to learn, even if that does mean it has leant slightly away from 'casual' usage towards more 'serious' territory. I wouldn't say entirely though, there is still a vast amount of 'comedy builds' mixed in with the ruthless efficiency.
I'm not sure it became the standard across the forum. But then, I also don't see why that is an issue. It's just a definition man. What is so wrong with saying 'returnable' if that is what your spent stages do? It doesn't make your rockets worse or your builds pointless and there's no need for such melodrama over it. Personally I think your returned stages are impressive as fuck, especially the larger ones.
It's the same as if a rocket only works with infinite fuel or the drag glitch. Doesn't make a rocket pointless if that is what it does and how you use it. But you can (if you wish) also strive to do better to make a legal build and there are many, many people here willing to not only help out, but from a position of real knowledge rather than TWR 2 hearsay, a fact that makes this place unique.
The only time I have an issue with such rockets is when they try to make claims and undermine work people have done on making things legal or abide by a definition like 'smallest to place' or 'most weight to location' etc. That's not to say 'illegal' rockets are crap either.
But they shouldn't be placed in a box with legal builds and the same goes with re-use/return. The level of planning, building and execution are totally different. It's not to say one is totally pointless because the other exists. But they should be kept separate, as they are separate from 'throwaway' builds, in recognition of the additional complexity required without it being taken offensively or diminishing the work that's being done.
What I'm trying to say (in my long form way) is thus. I very, very rarely land or recover things in flight. Boosters, ETs, spent stages, I drop the lot and leave them to smash into the ground. I also don't plan on de-orbiting spent stages after use and just 'self destruct' them once the injection stage has separated. That doesn't mean when I see Altair de-orbit everything because he doesn't like orbital debris or using the destroy parts function, that it suddenly renders my rocket obsolete. It doesn't mean when I watch Blazer landing 500t boosters or Cosmo assembling 1.5km long colony ships that I suddenly feel inadequate because I've wasted 80% of everything that's ever left my launchpad. And also not just because I can do total re-useability and view all this from some sort of technical 'superiority'.
Far from it.
It's because I know that a definition is an objective standard to attain, not a personal attack on someones abilities, and shouldn't be viewed as such. Some people can do it, some people can't do it yet and that's as deep as it goes.
Yes, I definitely think we should ban you. Someone get the hammer!
From a personal perspective of how friendly and open the forum was/is, I'll say this. I've been visiting for 2 years and a member for over 18 months. Some people reading this I consider as not just fellow gamers and intellectuals, but also friends whom with I chat with on and offline about more than just engines and firearms.
But before the present day, waay before I became the mememaster, and even before the rise of Horus Wafflecal, I was just a tourist on zero messages, zero likes and the first thing I did was PM TtTOtW and Altair asking questions. One was about multi-engine ISP calculations (a concept that i'd not had any luck with anywhere else), the other was about where I should post the first iteration of my spreadsheet. You can imagine to whom each message went.
At no point then or in the 3100 messages (some of which has been pretty damn controversial) since have they (or anyone else for that matter) been reluctant, rude, dismissive or anything other than completely helpful towards me.
The first direct message I got on here was from Mr/ Ambition himself handing me an unsolicited (and pretty difficult) rover challenge. But it wasn't in a rude, or 'you think you know rovers? I'm the rover king, try and match me n00b' way. It was a 'you're decent, but you can be better. Here is how' way. And prove me wrong, but for all of his...zealotry...for ambition and occasional lack of tact, you'd be hard pressed to find occasions where he is being an uncalled for dick about it. And I know for a fact the amount of time he puts into improving people around here. Maybe it's a bit too forced, but I'll never say it's from a position of malice of snobbish superiority.
The forum isn't perfect. Could it do with a bit of a throttle back, reduce the pressure a bit so we can go further up? Yeah.
But toxic? Nah. I wouldn't come on here day in, day out if it was.
Horus has some sort of forum character limit cheat going on, there needs to be a formal investigation
I assume, maybe wrongly that most people discover and use this forum as an intro how-to with no preconceived notion of contributing because they realize they don’t have any idea how to make a rocket orbit in this game that they’ve just discovered and google searched for a wiki to get them on top of the learning curve and so are protected in large by shy sensible silence
Those with the gall or foolishness to jump in and ring bells are either skilled in handling some blowback by other arenas or hopefully eager to learn here, others probably don’t have much use in this world or any other;
A foolproof world is no world at all, one of those failed zones in the multiverse with broken physics incapable of supporting intelligence
I assume, maybe wrongly that most people discover and use this forum as an intro how-to with no preconceived notion of contributing because they realize they don’t have any idea how to make a rocket orbit in this game that they’ve just discovered and google searched for a wiki to get them on top of the learning curve and so are protected in large by shy sensible silence
Those with the gall or foolishness to jump in and ring bells are either skilled in handling some blowback by other arenas or hopefully eager to learn here, others probably don’t have much use in this world or any other;
A foolproof world is no world at all, one of those failed zones in the multiverse with broken physics incapable of supporting intelligence
Horus Lupercal
Primarch - Warmaster
Professor
Swingin' on a Star
Deja Vu
Biker Mice from Mars
ET phone home
Floater
Copycat
Registered
Horus Lupercal
Primarch - Warmaster
Professor
Swingin' on a Star
Deja Vu
Biker Mice from Mars
ET phone home
Floater
Copycat
Registered
Altaïr
Space Stig, Master of gravity
Staff member
Head Moderator
Team Kolibri
Modder
TEAM HAWK
Atlas
Deja Vu
Under Pressure
Forum Legend
Also what I meant. Though as Horus said the picture is not as dark as I stated first.
But what made me say this first was in particular the fact that people were asked to play with drag under SFS 1.4. Lots of people here accepted it, but the drag system was so broken that I didn't want it to play with it myself (though I accepted the rule in the case of challenges). But with fairings being purely decorative, engines generating drag no matter where they are placed (below the rocket or enclosed in interstage they should be shielded), separators generating drag as a flat section the same as if they were fully exposed, aerodynamic parts that were actually draggy as hell (the fuselages)... Oh, I forgot the fuel tanks! All fuel tanks of 8 width and above had the same cross-section as a 4 wide fuel tank. Except for those of height 2, for those that value was doubled! I also remember about the 4 wide structural part that generated twice more drag than the others for an equal lenght (so four times the drag generated by a 2 wide struct, and the same as an 8 wide one).
I could go on, but you get the point, the list of bugs there is incredibly long! And this is not exhaustive.
It's not that I didn't know how to play with that system, I understood it. I even won a lightest Moon mission challenge with drag on. I placed docking ports instead of interstages, I knew the best options to make a booster aerodynamic... For example, to make a 12 wide booster aerodynamic, the best option was to do this:
I also knew that from the two designs below, the one on the right was 10 times more aerodynamic:
And I literally mean 10 times, I'm not exagerating
But knowing all of this doesn't make you an expert at rocket science. It makes you an expert at SFS 1.4 bugs.
I like to play with difficulty myself, but this is just fighting bugs. I found it was a cool (though very nerdy) challenge to design a crazy trajectory to go from Mercury orbit to Io orbit with only 750 m/s, but playing with that broken drag system... Fuck, I don't see the fun in that.
You guys like it, that's your choice and I respect that, but to be honest I felt really sorry each time a newcomer was explained he had to exit and resume the game to activate drag and play with all those bugs...
That's a thing of the past now, but that's mostly what I meant when I said that such rules shouldn't be set as a standard.
But what made me say this first was in particular the fact that people were asked to play with drag under SFS 1.4. Lots of people here accepted it, but the drag system was so broken that I didn't want it to play with it myself (though I accepted the rule in the case of challenges). But with fairings being purely decorative, engines generating drag no matter where they are placed (below the rocket or enclosed in interstage they should be shielded), separators generating drag as a flat section the same as if they were fully exposed, aerodynamic parts that were actually draggy as hell (the fuselages)... Oh, I forgot the fuel tanks! All fuel tanks of 8 width and above had the same cross-section as a 4 wide fuel tank. Except for those of height 2, for those that value was doubled! I also remember about the 4 wide structural part that generated twice more drag than the others for an equal lenght (so four times the drag generated by a 2 wide struct, and the same as an 8 wide one).
I could go on, but you get the point, the list of bugs there is incredibly long! And this is not exhaustive.
It's not that I didn't know how to play with that system, I understood it. I even won a lightest Moon mission challenge with drag on. I placed docking ports instead of interstages, I knew the best options to make a booster aerodynamic... For example, to make a 12 wide booster aerodynamic, the best option was to do this:
I also knew that from the two designs below, the one on the right was 10 times more aerodynamic:
And I literally mean 10 times, I'm not exagerating
But knowing all of this doesn't make you an expert at rocket science. It makes you an expert at SFS 1.4 bugs.
I like to play with difficulty myself, but this is just fighting bugs. I found it was a cool (though very nerdy) challenge to design a crazy trajectory to go from Mercury orbit to Io orbit with only 750 m/s, but playing with that broken drag system... Fuck, I don't see the fun in that.
You guys like it, that's your choice and I respect that, but to be honest I felt really sorry each time a newcomer was explained he had to exit and resume the game to activate drag and play with all those bugs...
That's a thing of the past now, but that's mostly what I meant when I said that such rules shouldn't be set as a standard.
Horus Lupercal
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Absolutely, there was very much almost a puritanical approach to it. A build would appear, 15 seconds later 'DOES THAT WORK WITH DRAG ENABLED!' would appear. And I'm not gonna deny it, I was in that group as well.
But that is also tempered by a) I used to defend people that just made stuff for the sake of making cool things and b) the builds I'd really tear into are ones that made fantastical claims that relied on having no drag in the first place to work.
Also, the biggest reason I did it was to kind of make people see that come the update, those vehicles will stop working and the earlier they got used to taking air resistance into an account, the less shocked you'll be when your old record breaker falls out of the sky before breaking the atmosphere. Which happened alot in the first days of 1.5.
Like that draggy mcdragface marble arch I put into orbit for a challenge. The launch vehicle doubled in size from what would lift it with drag 'off', to what it needed with drag on. Obviously now drag is fixed, you don't need the final iteration of 4500m/s as the drag penalty is no where near as high, but also the original version won't work in 1.5 either because its still a 100t block of struts and 2650m/s isn't going to cut it.
I just see it as a known, additional challenge to overcome, in the same way as gravity or whatever. It's a hefty price, but one I know the bill for so I don't mind
ha! *laughs in still playing 1.4.06 cos I'm an old bug expert not a new bugs expert*
But that is also tempered by a) I used to defend people that just made stuff for the sake of making cool things and b) the builds I'd really tear into are ones that made fantastical claims that relied on having no drag in the first place to work.
Also, the biggest reason I did it was to kind of make people see that come the update, those vehicles will stop working and the earlier they got used to taking air resistance into an account, the less shocked you'll be when your old record breaker falls out of the sky before breaking the atmosphere. Which happened alot in the first days of 1.5.
Like that draggy mcdragface marble arch I put into orbit for a challenge. The launch vehicle doubled in size from what would lift it with drag 'off', to what it needed with drag on. Obviously now drag is fixed, you don't need the final iteration of 4500m/s as the drag penalty is no where near as high, but also the original version won't work in 1.5 either because its still a 100t block of struts and 2650m/s isn't going to cut it.
I just see it as a known, additional challenge to overcome, in the same way as gravity or whatever. It's a hefty price, but one I know the bill for so I don't mind
ha! *laughs in still playing 1.4.06 cos I'm an old bug expert not a new bugs expert*