Somtaaw

Newtime user to USI parts, but I've encountered issues trying to track down specific sub-parts. Only 5 (terrible) Starlifter parts show up when searching for "Starlifter", unless I search by Cross-section 5m. Similar issue with Honeybadger components, I have to sort by cross-section to find more than a tiny handful of components.

I installed some mod (AmpYear I think it was) a few weeks back for double checking my EC needs for standard, run of the mill communication satellites over different planets. Even with just a HECS probe core, a standard RA-15 dish, and 3 solar panels for recharging. Assuming a 100km orbit of Duna, the mod tells me I need almost 35,000 EC to handle the dark side orbits. Sample picture of the AmpYear Mod displaying EC needs Since it's a communication satellite, possibility of brownouts is bad, would really suck if you forgot to account where your satellite is, start to transmit data, your satellite runs out of juice due to darkside passage, which shuts down due to no power, and then your rover stops functioning because you no longer have an active relay. If Ampyear didn't also setup most probes to have reserve power, you'd then be forced to send an actual Kerbal over on what amounts to "ok Bob, We're sending you out to Duna, you need to hit the reset button on the rover and the satellite and come on back home." Amendment: ok, it might be some of my other mods that could be influencing the need to have a Kerbal physically turning probes on, I have quite a few and several I got months ago and keep updated without actually being sure why I like(d) the mod in question.

Yeah, I guess it's more due to me not messing around enough with ConfigContainers, I only really load up on KSP a few times a week. I'm just going to put it down to not being familiar with fuel counts before throwing another mod in to change things up. Thanks for the quick double checking.

Almost a week ago, I discovered a fuel-related issue that I believe is linked to expanding the Throttle Controlled Avionics from allista, to also include her/his hangar mod (which forces a full install of Configurable Containers), seems to wipe the pre-set fuel options on OPT. After installing hangar, I could slightly customize OPT fuels, but it uses the default fuel maximums for container size, and I believe OPT has an option to really jam considerable fuel into each component, as well as alternatives for just LF, or just mono. I'm including my mod list for reference, but also conducting a few extra tests to be sure it's some form of interaction with hangar + full Configurable Containers interacting with OPT. All mods were installed using CKAN because I'm a rookie KSP modder, and it's just easier to see where problems arise. Update: Ok, after uninstalling Allista's Hangar (and the full ConfigurableContainer) and just using the basic ConfigurableContainer.Core required for OPT, I once more got access to the general OPT fuel presets. So I'm not sure anymore if this is something I should be taking to allista for the ConfigurableContainers/Hangar mod, or leaving purely here for an OPT only fix. For some sample numbers, the OPT J Inline Large Docking Port part... Fuel tanks options include: Totally dry, 720 units of LF, 360 units of LF & 440 Oxidizer, 180 LF & 220 Oxidizer, and finally 252 LF / 308 Oxidizer / 108 Mono. WITH the full level of ConfigurableContainers (installed by CKAN as part of the Hangar mod installation), the same OTP J Inline Large Docking Port part starts with 360 LF & 440 Oxidizer. Ok, possibly disregard me, it felt like it was underfuelled, but that might have just been from losing the pre-sets.

Bolded some of your keypoints for making my point You made an SSTO for a very specific purpose, take low quantity of Kerbals into orbit & bring them back down. As a mission for an SSTO, very acceptable, and as you observed you didn't really gain much in performance. However, the vast majority of SSTO's other people show off, that are Rapier based, are the observed SSTU's, designed to take off from Kerbin and go anywhere and everywhere. Role determines design, their role as an SSTU/SSTE (Single-Stage-To-Everywhere) requires the wider performance range of the Rapiers. And the very purpose of an SSTO, cost means nothing because you should be landing at, or very near the KSC, for near 100% cost return; so using a more costly engine means little if you only gain a few drawbacks like your observed low-thrust at low altitudes (it's a spaceplane, after you take off staying low altitude is like taking a Formula 1 car and staying in gear 1), but you gain many benefits like considerably wider performance range and functioning at lower air pressure, higher thrust values and I believe even a higher ISP in vaccum.

better solar panels, bigger ions, or better electric systems. To make functional satellites for communications, power requires are ridiculously high that by the time you have just ONE transmitter on Duna or Dres, you require somewhere upwards of 15,000 units of EC. To have that much EC stuffed into a 0.625m "satellite" makes your satellite appear to be a micro rocket, not to mention high part count. Now I concede NEAR Future Electrical has a few really nice, high storage parts, and I even use them from time to time, but honestly, they aren't really higher density so you get loosely the same dimensional requirements so you're ending up with lower part count, but loosely the same shape&size. Now we have lots and lots of satellites in Earth orbit, and I'm pretty sure for the most part very very few (if any) of them ever truly run out of power during dark side trips. And we don't have micrometeorites or "dust" in KSP, so I don't see us (yet) being forced to send Kerbals out to "clean & repair" satellite solar panels. So to fix the dark side energy needs to have transmitting communication satellites, if we don't reduce the stock need for power (which is arguably the easiest fix), or a super high-density EC battery is needed, so we can keep those communication satellites low part count, and small & compact like they should be.

So finally joining the club of OPT users, this is my first attempt at actually using the parts despite having had them for a while now. Build is sort of half-done right this second, but I think I've got the general core. Purpose to this ship is to quickly take a bunch of amateur Kerbalnauts, and giving them three stars relatively quickly. So the newbies get strapped into the Mobile Lab, and off we go. Front view Rear view Due to not being able to find other engines, a pair of J-92 Schram's for primary thrust, a Dark Goo drive for after reaching orbit to get out to the Mun and Minus for orbital, and probably several landings. Design is kept as thin as possible, to allow docking with the really fancy modded Spacedock's I have on my Kerbin stations. Depending on whether I chuck a bunch of refuelling stations out first, possibly extending the Crew Space Familiarization flight out to including Duna or even Dres before returning to a convienient station for assignment elsewhere thanks to levelling in the lab. Sadly I think due to some mod interaction, possibly the hangar mod, I lost ability to use the preset fuel customization on the OPT parts, so I may need to uninstall a few mods to adjust fuel properly, and I still need to outfit some Vernor's for V/STOL landings, unless I wait for the projected parts. I have yet to take her out for the virgin flight, as 100% of my Kerbals are currently already deployed on a multi-year training flight and I don't have any pilots available to hire so I'm posting to get a little feedback while I finish up my mission.

Also lost my notification logs when I was quoted/replied to on some of these threads, so not only were they removed from the list, they were so thoroughly expunged that it's almost as if they didn't exist. Hoping they will be restored, but given how thoroughly the history/notifications/etc were purged, it very well might not be possible. But nice catch, and good thing I'd run a search before posting a "hey, what happened to X" thread that's likely to be almost spammed as people come to post.

I was doing #4, but I moved to 3 simply because it seems to streamline a little better and I don't have a million module managers being loaded and slowing down the initial load. So I'd actually suggest there's a fifth option where it's "Know enough to not completely need CKAN, but not enough to give up the crutch" But that's just a nitpick.

It's long been known that consoles have never been mod-friendly, and buying any game on a console you are basically agreeing you don't care for modded experiences. Now, to be fair the last few generations of consoles, have permitted mouse/keyboard combinations, so ranting at the manufacturers of said consoles may eventually lead to them enabling PC style modding capability. However coming to the game creator's is not the way to get console mods possible, because it's the hardwired side that's stopping you. So the KSP's, Fallouts, Skyrims Mass Effects, and all the other super modded games of PC, have always been, and shall for the forseeable future remain "mod-less" on console. So the only real discussion for modding, can only apply to the platforms where modding is possible, PC & mac. Linux is merely a PC that isn't operating off a Windows OS. So the mod fragmentation is being applied by whether you bought the game from KSP directly, Steam, or one of the licensed retailers such as GOG (or any of the similars). After accounting for where you bought the game, it's actually the mod developers, if they choose not to host to Steam then it doesn't matter how loudly you demand the ability to have Workshop because that mod would still require manual installation. I'm not sure about whether Steam demands exclusive rights to certain mods, if they do that's a big reason to not make it happen. The current system may not be perfect, but it is however fair towards all the KSP's that can be modded in the first place by allowing manual installation after downloading with no mod host demanding exclusivity as a pre-requisite for their mod handling software.

Thanks, it was driving me more than a little nuts trying to figure out what the other information was I was missing.

So I've been slowly but surely adding mods to my game, but when I go to read the detailed information, very frequently even stock parts now have very long "detailed information" scroll lists, and I have no idea how to scroll it. I've attached what should be 3 functional links to 2 stock items, and a sample modded item where the detailed information is overly long for examples. I've already tried using Pg Up/Down, mouse wheel, and the up/down arrow keys with zero effect; and trying a rapid mouse movement to scroll while hovering over the detailed info either changes the part Im getting info for, or simply disappears entirely. Very frustrating, especially if trying to compare engines, or transmitters, or a few other items where you'll have lots of options and those details could make/break a decision. Mk1-2 Command Pod Sample OPT modded cockpit Convert O Tron 250

Okay, okay... I'll keep the Communotron in case I ever decide to start using RT again instead of just using the stock commnet >.< I'm a great believer in enjoying unmodded games, and Squad is great for taking popular mods and making them stock. Because nothing is ever truly as annoying as updating the game, and loading up a save to see endless summarized "Craft X had modded parts nolonger available and was removed" and you went from a huge space fleet and industry to nothing..... and you've both forgotten to do a backup save recently and no longer have any older backups either >.< But thanks for the probe redesign suggestions, what would you suggest for a longer ranged concept of the same general concept (as close to stock only as possible), orbit to be no closer than slightly inside Jool. I design my probes to network (RT experience), so I not only drop relays into target planetary orbits, but additional relays that copy planetary orbital information but are offset 45-90 degrees.

Habit of using extra antenna from my time using RemoteTech, and I instinctively assumed that having a long range dish meant utterly worthless for close-range, so for anything that isn't in Kerbin/Mun/Minmus area, I always triple antenna. Long range antenna to actually reach Kerbin, an omni wire antenna for general use, and possibly a short- to mid-range dish for use if I'm orbitting high enough up the omni has issues. So from your well-explained answer, I am most definitely over-engineering my probe, time to strip her down and probably tear off the useless HG-5, I'll probably keep the Communotron as a back-up just in case the standard Relay shifts more RemoteTech. Ah, well that's why my little relays rely on RTG's, one of these days that's going to bite me on the butt if I ever pickup one of the mods that make RTG's actually run out but my relay satellites run a loose 1:2 RTG to Solarpanel ratio. Really helps out for the longer darksides, not to mention a single RTG is enough to keep a probe powered up long enough to activate a non-ion engine which generates electricity to keep everything else running. Without using something like NearFuture Electrical, it's just too hard to cram enough EC onto a probe to rely purely on panels for power. Thanks for the answers, time to go and let Jeb fill his junkyard with what we rip off the old mark 1 relays before calling them mark 2's

It's just a generic mid-range communication relay satellite. I have to use the community Commnet link I just found out about an hour ago to double check my dish ranges, but this particular variant should be going into polar orbits on Duna and Dres, with possible additional clones moving into inclined solar orbits for extra relays. It's just spending the multiple hour long burns to go from LKO to destination that bothers me, the actual flights are fine but while I'm thrusting I can't turn timewarp high enough to bother.