Starhawk

Thanks. I apologize for my impatience. Happy landings!

Jool Exploration Mission Mission Parameters Bob, Bill, and Jeb will land on each of Jool's moons. Each crew member will plant a flag at each landings site. Science experiments will be carried on each landing craft and performed at each landing site. All crew will return safely to Kerbin's surface. Mission Craft JEM, the Jool Exploration Mission's central craft, consists of the following sections: six S1 SRB-KD25k solid rocket boosters along with seven S3 KS-25x4 Engine Clusters used for launch and initial ascent. four KR-2L Advanced Engines used for final ascent and circularization at Kerbin, interplanetary transfer, and Jool system orbital maneuvers. seven LV-N Atomic Rocket Motors used for Jool system orbital maneuvers and lander refueling. two spaceplanes, each with a single turbojet and two Rockomax 48-7S engines used for landing/science/reorbit at Laythe. one two-stage airless body lander, the outer stage consisting of 18 Rockomax 48-7S engines used for landing on and initial ascent from Tylo and the inner stage consisting of one LV-909 and two 48-7S engines used for final ascent from Tylo and landing at all remaining moons of Jool as well as Kerbin return. Mission Profile JEM will launch to 75 km x 75 km Kerbin orbit, expending and detaching the solid booster stage, and the following stage. Final ascent and circularization will be completed with the KR-2L stage. The craft will then be fully refueled in LKO. Interplanetary transfer will be followed by one of two possibilities: Optimal - direct aerocapture at Laythe. Alternate - aerocapture at Jool followed by encounter with and aerocapture at Laythe. Both spaceplanes detach and land on Laythe's surface. All experiments are performed. Flags are planted. Spaceplanes reorbit and rendezvous with JEM. Crew and all science transferred to JEM. Spaceplanes remain in Laythe orbit for possible future missions. JEM leaves Laythe and makes rendezvous with Tylo. Lander detaches from JEM and lands at Tylo. Science and flags. Reorbit, rendezvous, and docking. Outer stage of lander is detached during ascent from Tylo. Lander is refueled and 48-7S engines shut down since they are no longer needed. JEM leaves Tylo and enters Vall orbit. Undocking, landing, science, flags, reorbit, rendezvous, docking, and refueling. Process repeated for Bop and Pol. Final undocking and burn for home. Aerocapture and land anywhere at all. -- Mods used: KER and Hyperedit for simulation/testing. I'm pretty sure that this will be significant overkill for the mission, delta-v wise. I'm hoping that there's nothing important I've forgotten at this point. I was just about to post this when I realized I still have to add batteries to ensure those big reaction wheels have power. Input on the mission from the community is welcome. Happy landings!

Not at the moment. There wasn't much more to it than what I wrote. The idea seems pretty straightforward. Say you want to go to Duna and assume the probe is already in place. You create a maneuver node on the probe's orbit. Add prograde until the probe's orbit touches Duna's orbit. Then grab the maneuver node and slide it along the orbit line until you get an encounter. If you don't get one, right-click the maneuver node and use the little button underneath to advance the maneuver node one or more full orbit(s), and then slide it around until you have an encounter. You then know when to launch to have an encounter with Duna. You can then remove the maneuver node. I would imagine you might want to add a small amount of time to the time shown by the maneuver node, because Kerbin will be slightly behind the probe. Of course, you still have to make sure you get the ejection angle right as well as the timing, but that is just about patience and fine-tuning the maneuver node that you actually use for your burn. Happy landings!

An excellent use that I read about recently is as an interplanetary launch window finder. Put a probe/satellite in a solar orbit with the same parameters as Kerbin, only just ahead of it. You can then create maneuver nodes on the probe's orbit to see when you have a launch window to another body. Happy landings!

Kasper, Is there any word on improvements to the album embeds? Happy landings!

The posts above pretty much sum it up. Most efficient is described by Red Iron Crown. Safest/easiest is, as several people point out, circularize and then land. Happy landings!

There's a thread here that explains how to change it to answered. Happy landings!

Welcome in from the cold, lurker. An enormous amount of both fun and learning occur here. Happy landings!

In the settings.cfg file in your KSP install folder, there is a value called CONIC_PATCH_LIMIT. This determines the number of SOI changes through which the trajectory will be drawn. If you increase it beyond the default of three, you can plan maneuvers that involve several SOI changes. I have successfully used Tylo to save several hundred m/s returning to Kerbin from Laythe. It's definitely tricky, but doable. Happy landings!

We won't know the details until 1.0 drops. I'm still quite interested in the spreadsheet you are developing. Once you've posted three times, I believe you will have permission to start threads (and put up an avatar, if you want). Happy landings!

I hope you are feeling better soon. Don't worry too much about us. We have hype to sustain us until you're back to full health. Happy landings!

My understanding is that the body of a planet will block the sunlight, but surface terrain will not. Happy landings!

Okay, here's another question for SQUAD. Have you guys decided to drop The Daily Kerbal? Happy landings!

GoSlash27 has a craft called the Krak Badger which is a (presumably) reliable Kraken drive/infiniglider vehicle. Here's a link. Happy landings!

Thanks Kasper! I would have to say that both a much larger size and thumbnail functionality are critical features. The thumbnails should be selectable and scrollable as in the previous interface, allowing the user to selectively view specific images easily. Less waste space, and black/dark for the waste space makes the album much more viewable. Happy landings!

Apparently it's the 'Option' key. Happy landings!

Welcome to the forums! There's the tutorials section, as mentioned. If you have a specific question, you can check in the Gameplay Questions section to see if it's been answered, and ask it yourself if not. You should also check out the wiki which contains a wealth of information. Happy landings!

The size is so small that it makes them almost unviewable for me. Unfortunately this vastly reduces the attractiveness of much of the forum. I expect that Imgur wants more click-throughs, but the deterioration in overall user experience seems to me to be a large issue. Perhaps there are other photo-sharing services from which the forum might be able to display embedded albums.

Up Goer 1. Happy landings!

I just ran several test myself, and I can confirm Foxster's results. No portion of the craft to which the panel is attached appears to block the light as far as the calculations for evaluating how much electric charge is created go. Visually, there are shadows but they don't have any effect. Other objects not connected to the craft can still block the light. Of course, the angle between the panel surface and the sun is still crucial. Happy landings!

These challenges are a great and fun experience. One of the things that I find attractive about the forum is the challenges. When I joined and made an entry for the K-Prize challenge, I remember looking at the thread and thinking about the time and dedication it requires to run a challenge of that magnitude. @Laie - I fully understand being conflicted and struggling with competing demands on you as a person. My wife and I have discussions about how much time I spend on this game. What I also understand is that it's really hard to find balance, especially when a lot of emotion is involved. The thing I really realize from what you say, is that you care about the effort that people put into this, but at the same time, you care about the people in your life. I hope you find a balance that still involves KSP at some point. @Commander Zoom - I recognize the effort that goes into an entry to this challenge. For me, it imbued the thing with a lot of importance and emotion, just because of the planning, thought, and time put into it. I waited on pins and needles for Laie to look at it and pass judgement. I understand that the response you got was completely underwhelming and disappointing. It is my hope that you can understand that it seems Laie is having a tough time between being pulled into KSP and away from KSP at the same time and that may be affecting the tone and enthusiasm of his responses. I recognize your point that there are other ways this could have been handled, but it's often hard to make what others see as the best choice when you are conflicted or struggling. Challenges need to be fun both for those entering and for those running the challenge. If someone who runs a challenge decides to disappear without a word, that shouldn't be a problem. I probably didn't say any of this very well, but hopefully a few of my points got across. Happy landings!

Appearance of experimentals on Steamdb reported at 10:16 this morning. Happy landings! edit: that's UTC -07:00

Strangely, you have to hit the liquid more slowly than you would hit solid ground if you want the craft to survive. One of the quirks of the physics engine. Happy landings!

I'm a bit surprised by the number of people who hope/plan/expect to bring current craft files into 1.0. If the rebalance is as comprehensive as I expect, then I would imagine that my 0.90 craft would not function the same(or at all) in 1.0. I also anticipate that the aero overhaul will completely change the requirements for a craft which is intended to reach orbit. I expect that I would be forced to throw away all my launchers and spaceplanes even if I wanted to keep them. Happy landings!

There were three empty sections of tank behind the cockpit which were used as structural members. The two FL-T800 tanks contained only liquid fuel. I probably should have had the resource panel opened for all the screenshots. Anyway, here's a pic with the fuel tank tabs opened. I'll post the craft file if you're interested. Happy landings!