dervd123

This mod got me back into ksp Currently unnamed airship commencing circularization burn

I've been playing around with Tiltjets (and tiltrockets?) with Infernal Robotics for a couple of days. Flies like a dream if you leave the back MK3 to 2.5m adapter empty of fuel. It should be able to VTOL on any airless body, but on kerbin Short takeoff is a better bet for the fuel margin once you make orbit. I'm also working on a exploration loadout with a tiny karbonite drill on a rope, 4 Cryopods from deepfreeze, and 6 jumbo 64s of Orbital Fuel.

is there a way to have a value for closest approach distance and time to closest approach? I can't seem to find them if there is

Any chance we'll see ground effect lift at some point? It could be really interesting as a landing mode for large spaceships, ie. have just enough lift to pull out of a suicide dive close to the water when the ground effect starts to matter, apply airbrakes and soft land as a boat, take off with lifting body and then return to space with >1 TWR. Basically a lifting body spaceplane that only has enough lift within a few dozens of meters of the surface and then has to transition to acting more like a rocket really low.

It is still a little twitchy, but I noticed if you have it spinning at a slow speed (1 or 2 rpm) with reaction wheels you'll go a lot straighter. A better practice is to stay deflected from prograde and spin clockwise or counterclockwise depending on which way you're drifting. Some pics and yaw is still needed, but not nearly as much. Edit: pointing radial+ early in the decent (until you start seeing reentry effects) can also bleed off some speed if you have a big service bay on the bottom of your capsule. Good if you're likely to overshoot your landing point.

The new aero is absolutely amazing. I had a crossfeed issue where one of my four strap on boosters didn't have its fuel line attached to the sustainer and through brute forcing it in the 8-12 km altitude with fins I didn't have a complete mission failure from the resultant asymmetric flameout, just ended up in a highly inclined parking orbit. That would have been a crash and revert to launch immediately in oldstock

From Wikipedia. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Command_Module#Command_Module_.28CM.29 "The Command Module's center of mass was offset a foot or so from the center of pressure (along the symmetry axis). This provided a rotational moment during reentry, angling the capsule and providing some lift (a lift to drag ratio of about 0.368[4]). The capsule was then steered by rotating the capsule using thrusters; when no steering was required, the capsule was spun slowly, and the lift effects cancelled out. This system greatly reduced the g-force experienced by the astronauts, permitted a reasonable amount of directional control and allowed the capsule's splashdown point to be targeted within a few miles." You spin it if you want to go straight

Use roll to keep your preferred orientation moving you towards the prograde marker. Also use it to steer your reentry to a net +pitch. Also stop your deorbit burn when you're 10-20km periapsis just past your preferred landing point. It's not a bug, it's lift and its how real astronauts don't get hit with 20 Gs during reenty.

Jeb and Bill loved scatterer when they were waiting for rescue after crashing the plane

Waldoes are the manipulator arms on the pod that allow EVA-like manipulation from inside a pod. Sorry for the confusion. I was referring to being able to assemble things on orbit with small worker pods, not suggesting this mod includes any kind of crew vehicle.

Any chance we'll get waldoes at some point? EVA is cool but tiny space pods with grabby arms are cooler. Could also maybe move heavier parts around?