More online fun

[ffutures]

Another couple of things found by ps238principal

Harrey Podder - Say The Magic Word. Some of the pitfalls of magic...

The Kerbal Space Program

Free (at the moment) Windows spaceship design game - help some aliens develop their space program

http://www.kerbalspaceprogram.com/

And a video of some less than successful attempts... Totally unfair title but never mind.

Comments

[pauldrye.livejournal.com]

'Course they're unsuccessful, they're sending them up without SASes.

((Jebediah Kerman is my new hero))

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

OK I'm hooked. You evil man. =:o}

Can anyone tell me, when a long thin rocket with all the shove at the back accidentally ends up upside down, what's the procedure for turning it back up the right way again? Or better still, stop it tipping before it even reaches horizontal? I have three little green guys who are rather keen for me to figure this out before I kill them again! =:o[

[pauldrye.livejournal.com]

Use a/more SAS module(s), then use T to turn them on and leave them on from before you launch until it's time for you to tilt the rocket over and go for orbit.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Yes, it does seem to be rather easy to kill them - I've blown every launch so far, my astronaut team must be rather annoyed...

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

I can get them up to 11 or 12km and back down quite safely, and once managed (I think) 17km and back without casualties. (The parachute seems to be remarkably resistant to having hastily jetisoned rogue engines blasting straight at it for short periods as they tumble away!)

Actually achieving orbit is a whole 'nuther ball game... =:o\

Add in the complication that I don't have a joystick on this machine, so can't control liquid fueled engines (why are there no keys for that?!?), so I'm having to construct everything with arrays of solid boosters! =8o[

[pauldrye.livejournal.com]

You can control liquid engines with your left Shift and left Ctrl keys (throttle up and throttle down).

As far as I can tell it's not possible to reach orbit without the throttle. Before I figured out the keys I was in the same boat as you and had built what I think was the maximal possible rocket -- I called it "The Wedding Cake" and adding anything else kept it from rising from the launchpad. It could "only" fling my kerbonauts three-quarters of the way around the planet.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

Aha! Thanks for the tip. =:o}

I've been focussing on achieving maximum straight-up altitude for now. Last neight I reached 31.2 km upwhich gives you a nice view of the curvature of the planet. (Shipname: "LeanAtopBigBum4". My names kind of evolve by adding descriptors as I add more stages. =:o} )

I'd love to know what the game's doing though that makes the rest of the system so sluggish while it's running. It's not using much CPU, or *that* much memory, so I'm guessing it's just hammering my (humble, integrated) graphics subsystem... But, even when the game is paused on the "end mission" dialogue?!? I may have to fire up the excellent & recently updated Procmon to see what's going on under the hood. So that'll be a couple of hours in which I get to click the mouse no more than 10 times, then... And drink lots of tea... =:o?