Aedile

It depends if you are using mods, etc, and how realistic you want your lander to be. External seat - is a no no for me. But like it can probably be seen in many designs, you need efficient atmospheric engine such as aerospikes. You can also do a 3 refuel mission. Lift lander, refuel, go to eve orbit - refuel, land - take off, refuel what's left - go home.

Exactly that. I usually have few small mobile tanks, which go to pick any excess fuel from big middle stages. When used in a small ship, this can end up as quite some deltaV. Fuel station around moons are very useful of course (especially with a lab), but you can fuel directly at tanker. If your ship is big, such as interplanetary ships, it's easier to fuel it with tanker. You can also send tankers to other planets of course, so you don't necessarily need crazy big, FPS killing behemoth. (Easier to control as well, so you can save on RCS and reaction wheels).

Landing on Eeloo is easy, thanks to nuclear engines, which still have more than twice the ISP of any of the new parts. Nuclear Engine lander won't have any trouble. While it takes crazy amount of time to get there, There is nothing hard about it. Coming back from Eve now that's a challenge. Still if craft not too heavy - aerospike and wings will do better than any of the new parts. Tylo is pretty tough nut as well. Lots of fuel to get there to begin with. Jool moon missions are pretty demanding in general. Only thing the new parts make easier, is getting things to orbit, so less docking requred

Hi, I'm wondering if other people have problem with the GForce flag. I seem to get it when the kerbal leaves the small pod. Any clue?

Umm, too low TWR.

Duplicating ship issue from remote tech 2?

The problem with eccentric orbit I hope you realize that dropping the periapsis at the exact position and time around Kirbin and burning there is the whole point of it. In fact high Mun orbit works better, as you would miss launch window with less, due to lower time to travel, and lower Mun orbital period. Install a mod such a precise node, add a number of small satellites so you could test encounters from different start orbits. Then even 6 stations won't work - why - because orbital period is like what 5 days? You need to be at periapsis at the exact point and time. Launch ship few days early, using nodes, get it in correct elliptical orbit, so that the next perhaps is he phase you'll need to burn for ejection. Send a fuel ship, rendezvous and refuel. Easily accomplished if you start with identical circular orbits, with fuel ship trailing you few minutes. Not sure why you need refueling station on a wrong orbit as a middleman. Or better yet build a mother ship/fuel ship which can burn together. In ksp refueling and bases make most sense for landers/rovers, as well as refueling over low orbit of the body producing

I assume you are playing un-modded? Full throttle to 100-120m/s, throttle down so your speed almost stops increasing and don't fiddle anymore. The turning does not only help, it is required part of going to orbit. The completely unrealistic, and not very efficient way, is to boost vertically up to 10 km. 300m/s at 10 km is good speed. If you are going for equatorial orbit, turn 45 degrees, full throttle until you reach desired apoaps. Wait until around apoaps, boost to raise your periaps. If they change the KSP aerodynamic model however, this won't be the best way to do it. The key for going to equatorial orbit, is your orbital prograde. It starts at horizon at heading 90 as launchpad is on equator ( you can switch navball and see it at any time). Basically going to orbit consist of increasing your altitude +gravity turn. After the first several km (10 is good) where you are mostly occupied with drag and staging, you begin your turn. at 7-8 km switch your naval to orbit ad see where is your pro-grade - you want is somewhere around 45degree pitch on 90 heading. By throttling up if it's too low, turn slightly right if it's too high. Try to get it around therer. At 250-300 m/s at 10km should not be far. Start turning towards it. From now on boost orbital pro-grade. Now here depends on your TWR. (move to map, if you don't have a mod which shows you your orbital stats). If you have enough TWR, throttle up/down so your apoapsis keeps around 60-30 seconds from you. If you don't have enough twr you might need to pitch up a little. Pro grade will naturally move towards the horizon. Once your apoaps is high enough, stop engines wait for it and burn to fix the periapsis. Other orbits are similar as well, but you'll need to overcome the planet rotation, so the gravity turn is a bit different, as you'll need to overcome the planet rotation, rather than utilize it. But again the idea is to gain most speed after you fix your orbital prograade and boost in its direction.

It's cheaper from LKO. Refueling station at the moons makes sense in 3 cases - Exploration of said moon. This is very effective. Best placed on low polar orbit around said moon. Refueling on return, though you are probably better off with aero capture. Going to a different planet. In this case, the trick is not to escape directly from there, but rather, escape to kirbin, in such a way that you are at periaps exactly at the location and time you need to start burning for your transfer orbit. This could be useful , depends where you are going. You will need to do a mid course plane change as well to match inclinations. With the help of a mod such as precise node, you can do this from high Mun orbit 'relatively easy', as Mun's orbit is not inclined, and has relatively short period, and the trip takes just a few hours. Still it's one of those things which does not make much sense, unless you use a mod and produce fuel there and have a reusable program going on. Building bigger rocket and refueling it in LKO directly by a fuel ship, is much, much simpler. Mun slingshot is also simpler. Refueling station on circular orbit at the edge of Kirbin SOI does not have much practical value if any, and efficient rendezvous take long time. Also they are difficult to refuel.

There are few conflicting things. I wings and jet engines aside, From one side - Drag - more speed more drag - always. With stock ksp this is linear, with FAR depends on many factors. if you use FAR atmosphere is gets thinner faster, however you have to be more careful with the gravity turn, higher AoA higher drag, especially if you stall, control becomes harder with higher speed. Gravity turn, if you are going for equatorial orbit, this is almost an art. You don't want to burn far from pro grade. If you boost too much vertically, you will burn once to fight the planet rotation, and once to compensate. Generally you don't want your orbit pro-grade to go over 45. From the other side - Engine ISP - the faster you gain altitude, the better. Weight - The faster you lose weight, the less you need to carry the rest of the way. Generally you don't want to be carrying dead weight such as half empty tanks, idle engines, structural elements. The faster you get rid of fuel as well, the better. Smaller and lighter rocket is easier to control (so you can go with less control fins torque rcs). on the other hand, decouplers and struts weigh as well so over-engineering staging might not be great. Drag - the faster you stage, the better. The faster you go in thin atmosphere the better. To the questions about SRBs. In RL thrust changes with isp, so lots of rockets wont make it without boosters. If you use a mod which changes isp from fuel burn to trust, you'll really appreciate this fact. Depends on your rocket engine. One of the things, which does not matter yet and they excel in - cost. The second thing - TWR, while they have pretty poor ISP, they are pretty good at ASL. Anyway, in my experience, burn boosters at full power, or 75%. Burn first stage engine as well. You basically want a TWR between 1.25 and 2. So basically, boost from 1.5 ish - this increases until you drop boosters. Ideally you'll drop SRBs when you begin main part of your gravity turn. Here is good to have TWR around 1.25, as you might need gravity to bring your pro grade down a little. Then generally you want to boost pro-grade, with apoaps staying some 20-30 seconds away. There is of course a case where you might want not to use a first stage engine, so you might want SRBs to boost you to acceptable altitude

Actually salt water is denser, and has higher surface tension. And anyway, buoyancy is linked to the vessel displacement, remember the guy with the bath tub. KSP works in a similar way, I am unsure about the 'water' density, and I am not sure if even the objects dimensions can be considered as meters. However kirbin 'water' simulation (due to unity simulation) is rather imperfect. Surface tension and water drag do not work very well, so it's pretty easy to make something float, but rather difficult to move around. In addition it's less dangerous to land rather than splashdown.

First there is no need to get defensive, I am not attacking you. Unless you consider difference of opinion an attack. You claim the current ui is more user friendly, and it is not, as it takes you longer to accomplish the same task. You can dismiss that as a rant, but the new ui takes more time, there is more chance for misconfiguration (error), and requires more knowledge. Not many people realize how to build a chute from scratch, for example what material to use for drogue, drag etc. If your new design requires 'read the manual' and the old one did not, what does that tell you about user friendliness? And manual is not exactly ready is it? So where else I could get this information other than ask here? I don't recall being here at version 0.3 asking stupid questions - because things were rather obvious. It does give you more options which I appreciate, there is a workaround with the sub-assemblies, so not that big of a deal, yet less 'user friendly'. This is why I suggested adding some sub assemblies, so people can go and test them in sandbox, or copy over to their game. I am perfectly capable of adding them, and would have offered to provide them so you don't need to lose your own time, but fair enough, if this would somehow ruin your mod, I won't argue. Now about the part size - I'm pretty sure you are aware of the issue when using symmetry. You can't do that anymore, at least I am unable to even put the smallest cone on a 2.5 side boosters. Yes I know I can build a single one and then symmetry the whole booster. About the 'next' size - most of us think of next size as a bigger size. This is for two reasons, most of us count up, and you unlock bigger sizes later. Also in most cultures which write left to right, next is to be placed on the right, it's more intuitive. Both easily fixed with changing the labels. The calculation does not seem to work very well, I assumed is FAR issue. Still, hit the ground at 12m/s instead of 5m/s. Perhaps was simply coming in too hot. Landing happened at around 1400m, return from LKO. Does atmospheric density affect drag? Do I need to compensate for elevation? The copying part around - while a copied part keeps the stats, further modification, requires you to enter each and every stat, as the UI cannot pick them up. Which I personally consider less user friendly than the stock tweakables in the 0.3 versions. Consider a case where you add a radial chute to one stage, configure it's properties, copy it to another, and want to tweak something - well you cannot - while you could do that with previous parts. Hence my comment - it was better before. Here you can use subassembly as well with various results. You also need to remember which one is your original when using symmetry, and which are the copies. I know this is ksp limitation, modular fuels have the same issue. Dare I suggest you add that in the list of known issues? About the weight - I did not see anything about the case size/max diameter/spares and how they affect weight, or your further implementation plans in the area. A simple 'it's on my to do list', would have done nicely. What information post mentioning this I seem to have missed? It's not in the first post of the this or the dev thread (or its very well burred), so not sure why you feel the need to imply I'm lazy or ignorant, and go on to lecture me about being aggressive. Perhaps your energy is better spent on amending the information. OP information which isn't exactly correct - for example says selecting a drogue chute gives you exactly the same chute as before - well sure except it gives you main chute look, and material. Not that it makes so much difference in behavior other than drag and weight, the autocalc compensates for the most part. To answer my own question, in case someone else is wondering. Currently, in my experience In case of radials, use the smallest case possible, as it fits the same chute, it's lighter, and presents less surface in case of FAR - deadly reentry. For cones use the one which fits your node, if aerodynamics aesthetics matter more than weight. It's unknown to me whether or not bigger case has less chance to break, or if chutes break at all (guessing from the OP they don't, I haven't tested that as I have deadly reentry, and will peak G forces/heat before the joint or chute breaks). This would likely change in the future. Also combo chute, will not warn you if your craft is too heavy if, your first chute is main and the second drogue - which happens to be it's default configuration. Reversing them gives warning, but the second chute won't fully deploy. So don't have secondary chute open second. As a unrelated note, what would be pretty nice (especially for drogue chutes), would be option to have a deployment speed, for example, deploy when speed falls under 400m/s. Pre-deploying auto-calculated drogue at the default 30k tends to result in 8-9g. Not sure on what max diameter is based, I have managed to set cone to either 121 or 70m, any insight on that? It's an honest feedback. In any case, since you seem find all this insulting, I'll go do something less futile.

(edit again) Is there a link between part size, weight and maximum diameter? Seems deployment diameter and material and part size changes the mass. The number of spare chutes does not?? Also what's the sense in using big chute case (for radials) if it cannot hold a bigger chute, than the much lighter smaller case?

I'm sorry to say, the old one was better. It just takes longer to configure now, and the old configuration was simpler, and more user friendly. It's not about how difficult to grasp it it is, it's about how long it takes you to do the same job. If it takes you longer, it's less 'user friendly'. Test how long it will take you to add single drogue chute - old version - add chute, change predep/dep size new version - add chute, go to AG, change part size, change textures, change model, change material, change 'must go down', change deployment size, change dep altitudes (or use auto and pray). One also must guess what the maximum values are. The part size thing is mightily annoying, as the part might not fit. Also, "next size" makes part smaller ?! The chute calculation doesn't really work with FAR, and the automatic, use vessel mass is kind of useless, as it of course uses the mass of the whole rocket (yes I realize you can use the manual, extra switching...). Yes also you can't just copy a chute around without having to manually configure them again. In fact, all values from the dialog are cleared. I'm not sure what leads you to believe the new UI is more user friendly. I would suggest you add differently configured chutes as sub assemblies

You can turn it off from settings for each save game regardless of mode I beleive

On the same subject, any option to forgo the iron-man mode. Travelling to Jool, and experienced one of those spontaneous dis assemblies. Any way to revert to last quick-save without getting broke, or losing months of progress? I tend to do other things while waiting, rather than warping. I mean would be fine if game and mods were bug-free and stuff, but... Then I'm also wondering what happens with constructed in orbit ships...

@ferram - thanks for the reply, I'll investigate further. I have quite a few mods installed, but leaving KJR out fixes my issue, so the least is incompatibility with KJR. I guess I need to try clean install with DR FAR KJR and Interstellar and see what the issue could be... Edit, something to do with B9 or Firespitter (even though no parts used in design)

Ok, what's the deal with KJR and FAR. Seems like I can no longer built a plane, which won't make the kerbals endure endure enough G, for DR to basicly kill them. Even using FAR example craft and reducing the control surface sensitivity to 5% will give 15+ G at mach 1. while gently pulling up. I have not managed to pull more than 7G when KJR is uninstalled. Well guess I'll be strutting again...

I think assumptions are just fine, most models will have issues with some specific cases. And honestly compared with the stock model, the issues FAR is having are minor at best. Anyway personally only thing which bothers me from realism PoV, is the excessive shape drag on the back. Just made a reentry test with reentry from 100km orbit with 30km pe,with vehicle consisting of 1.25>2.5 adaptor, 2.5m lander can and adapter again. Seemed like the adapter in the front and the one on the back had almost identical drag (at 25k back was 49kN front was 53kN). It's consistent with a lone can or mk1-2 pod, but it just seems odd that you'll get almost same drag on each side. As to why heat shield has so much lower drag, I have no clue.

My opposition to the "does not appear to have a hatch", stems mostly from the fact that most parts, squad or otherwise (like fuselages) don't appear to have a hatch, but seem to be intended to be passable (like the LLL corridors for example). Anyway, was wondering how to fit this with modular/real fuels which let you add fuel to structural elements. The realism mod uses real fuels, so it seems a mod which would most benefit, would run into a bit of a logical issue...

No no, very legitimate vehicle. 2.5m shield, battery, can, fairing base, adaptor (2.5-1.25 stock), docking port. I set it on 40k reentry directly from mun escape, turn sas off. Once it reaches the atmosphere, can orients itself properly and enters really smoothly. (less than 40k nets me around 8G reentry) On closer observation, you see the adaptor starts draggin 0.2kN from 60k, and at attitude of 35k, the adaptor gets 50kN, while the shield gets 17kN. At 15k my speed has dropped to around 250, I am almost vertical, and the shield gets around 8 while the adaptor 40kN. At attitude of 1500m, I have reached around 50m/s. It's basically the same with squad and KW and b9 adapters, larger than 2.5 m. Oddly enough if you actually leave the adapter, and leave docking port directly attached to the can (or fairing base), you get far less drag, and with 40k pe you'll need to do a double dip reentry. Hope that helps

I think the big change on the back, has unnecessary big drag. I understand the low pressure reverse lift, but no, it's just too extreme. The heat shield at reentry having half the drag than the adaptor on the back, is not exactly the way it should be

This is a type of mod I have been waiting for a long time. I wanted to comment on the passable node issues. I wouldn't base my decision which node is passable on the visual appearance of a hatch. Structural fuselage does not appear to have a hatch but it makes good sense that it would be passable. So it is not illogical to think that when connecting two parts together, the caps might have been removed. (unless of course there is a decoupler).