E. F. Kranz

Launched, fatal failure at 80km 1000m/s. Winglets and decouplers and engines and tanks everywhere, the thing completely disassembled itself. VAB. Strut. Fixed. Relaunched. .... Flew directly into a cloud of debris from the previous flight. ??? Didn\'t hit anything, but also didn\'t expect it to be there. It was pretty cool.

I did that once. I was trying to time warp closer but misjudged, went directly through the moon and the game crashed.

You\'ve got something off-center.

I tried it, with some of my early rovers. Ultimately I moved to a large lander, from on top of which my rover would blast off, land, then eject its rockets. Finally, I decided to construct a flying rover, which led to the design I\'m having fun with now - The HoveRover.

But that would take all the fun out it!

The craft is designed for low-altitude munar observation. Its flight capabilities are intended to allow the pilot to easily move from feature to feature. Think of it as a munar helicopter. So, while not specifically trying to hold any particular altitude above ground level (since I have no ground level radar), I would describe the intended flight characteristic as 'ground following,' primarily due to attempting to conserve energy. It flies nicely over ridges and down into craters, and I must admit that cruising through canyons is particularly fun.

Come to think of it, how useful would the MechJeb be in this situation? I\'m typically maintaining an altitude of roughly 150m off the munar surface. Given the variations of the geology of the Mun, will this plugin be able to 'look ahead' and anticipate the delta-V requirements for maintaining an altitude over varied terrain? I suspect not, as even as a human pilot, I find such tasks, well, taxing.

I wonder if the 'repeat delay' in Windows control panel / keyboard settings has any effect?

I\'ll be honest, White Owl. I actually went out and bought a joystick (or a keypad, or whatever the kids call them these days). Truth is, I can\'t wrap my brain around it. In traditional flight using a joystick, your main axis is horizontally oriented. In KSP, it\'s vertical. Or maybe I\'m not describing it right. Anyway, I have absolutely no idea why I can fly with a keyboard, but not a joystick.

re: tapping - Yes, that\'s what I\'m doing. I\'d estimate even the 'tap' is an increment of 5-10%, though. re: fuel weight - I knew that instinctively, but have not been taking it into account during flight. Sounds like MechJeb is the solution, just takes all the fun out of it.

No, I haven\'t. It was recommended to me to solve another problem, and I looked into it. Feels too much like 'cheating,' to me. I suppose I\'ll need to get over it....

Hey all. I\'ve more or less perfected my HoveRover flight-capable rover design. It is sturdy, steady, and has a flight range (on the Mun) far greater than 50km, roving range of course is limited only to the amount of time you feel like putting into it. One problem I\'m running into is the inability to control the throttle position precisely. I\'m certain that there is a thrust level at which the rover would hover perfectly, neither rising nor falling, but I can\'t find it. Instead, I\'m left watching my vertical rate and babying the throttle to maintain an altitude. CAPSLOCK for precise control seems to only affect directional controls, not the throttle. Is there a solution to this, or is it simply a limitation of the game?

Hey, good thinking! Excellent advice. Even though the lowest setting is 25, that still helped. Thank you.

I don\'t see the forum where we\'re supposed to make suggestions anymore, so I\'ll post this here. I would like an option to, as the title says, 'remove all debris.' Not currently orbiting or landed ships, of course, but just debris. I\'m sure this can be accomplished through editing some file somewhere, but who has the time? Perhaps somebody smarter than I could just hack together an editor that opens the persistence file and parses out the debris, leaving all other craft alone? Debris is such a problem for my system, which graphically runs the game fine at 1920x1080 with everything turned up. Autosaves can take 20 seconds. Switching craft can take 45. Any help out there?

I don\'t have any problem with it. Now granted, it\'s not realistic. A 'regular' rocket would not need 36 winglets to be controllable. But it\'s certainly possible to design a craft which is perfectly 'steerable.'

'Look at his post count?' Seriously?

Even if there are, say, 16 of them?

I\'m an engineer. I\'m guilty of overdesigning my crafts. That\'s probably why I\'m irritated when a 'landing strut' can\'t hold up to 2m/s ground contact. My latest monstrosity, the HoveRover is a dual-lander design with fuel for days:

Don\'t get me wrong, I\'m happy to have it! But this is an ongoing problem that really isn\'t specific to the LT-2. ALL landing legs seem to suffer from the same weakness - the point of attachment. They act like they\'re attached with drywall screws and duct tape. Struts, you say? That\'s all well and good, except you can\'t attach one leg to another. And of course then there\'s the whole 'the VAB ate my struts and I didn\'t notice until I got to the Mun' thing.

Yeah, you need to strut the heck out of that thing.

I read your posts, Vince. Look it\'s no big deal. I\'m glad it\'s out there in the open. I would classify you as a 'skeptic,' which is okay in my book.

This has been obvious for a while now.

Yep, I agree. I also would like to have whatever the opposite of time compression is. ½ warp, if you will.

But... that\'d take all the fun out of it!

I will suggest as a possible future feature - A workspace where landers and/or rovers can be constructed and tested in their own environment, independent of whatever will eventually be attached beneath them. For that matter, each stage might as well be constructed in its own, user-defined environment. For instance: Currently, there is no way to test an orbital stage without first designing a sufficient suborbital stage. And so on. There is no way to test a rover design in the environment in which it is expected to operate without first delivering it to that environment. Surely any advanced space program would solve these rather simple problems.