Gnawer

Makes sense, thanks SAI Peregrinus. I'll check out those mods then.

Actually, I searched and found out that drills don't deplete ore on planets/satellites. Wow. So, no separate excavator required. Still, in the interest of not docking on surface, excavator shuttle seems more practical. Wouldn't be the case if drill or the ore were heavier (which they should be IMO). > Does there have to be a practical purpose? Not necessarily, but it's more fun when it exists.

I've been experimenting with surface outposts for a while, but didn't have a lot of success. I get doing them as a challenge or contract, but do they really work for anything else? My thinking was, an outpost would be natural for resource mining. Ok let's say we have a processing plant, ore tanks, and fuel tanks. We also need a separate excavator vessel with a drill. Our ultimate goal is to get the fuel to orbit, so ships can refuel there. So we also need a shuttle to transfer fuel to the orbit. That's a lot of moving parts there. Another scenario: our entire processing plant is on the orbit. In this case excavator is also the shuttle, the difference is it shuttles ore instead of fuel. Docking in orbit is way less difficult than on surface, so this structure is much less of a pain in the ass. Now, my first thought was lifting crude ore is ridiculous, but turns out KSP ore is like super refined and is basically the same mass as fuel. Plus, in reality I would use an assortment of ground vehicles to maintain the surface outpost. There would be construction equipment to move modules around, ore trucks, actual ground excavators, etc. I would love to build all that, and it is almost possible in the game, but not quite. Basically the main focus is on rockets, and every piece is really designed for a rocket. Rovers are fun to play with, but actually driving them anywhere? It's just not that kind of a scale. As for loaders and such, there's a key piece missing: some kind of controllable lifting arm or platform that would allow to operate large weights with reasonable precision (entirely not a rocket concept). So, am I missing something, did anyone actually had a success with surface outposts? Or are they more of a challenge than an actual functional piece?

I think I figured it out. I had a setup with central booster and several identical radial boosters (asparagus). Turns out, it wasn't completely symmetrical. Some radial boosters had struts missing on one side, which made that side kinda wobbly. Apparently, SmartASS has a real issue with that. While stock SAS just keeps heading without so much as noticing this wobble, SmartASS tries to do something that unbalances it way more and eventually flips the rocket over. It's pretty easy to reproduce: create a rocket with 1+6 large boosters (I use double T800 tanks), and put struts just on one side.

Ok, so noone else has this issue? Must be something with my system then. Maybe it doesn't like Windows XP or something.

Surf-UP makes the rocket mad unstable, almost like there's no SAS at all. Or rather, it tries to steer, but I don't understand where exactly. Orbit-Prograde just tips me over right away, because orbital prograde is way more than 5% from zenith. In fact I don't understand how it is possible to launch like that with simple enough rocket (PS: maybe with like beefy fins, but I just avoid this kind of stuff). The core is in prograde direction, but is off-center (as it's the box, not the pod). Here's the screenshot if it helps. http://imgur.com/cDQXm79 - - - Updated - - - Unfortunately, not that. I tried to put it in the service bay, but now it does point in incorrect direction. So I just made a totally symmetrical rocket and installed two boxes. It does exactly the same thing. Plus, SAS can control it in both cases, so it couldn't be that serious.

I have a rocket that's fairly complex, but flies fine with regular SAS. What I want to do, is launch it straight up to certain altitude (I don't want to do the gravity turn for the purpose of this launch). Regular SAS just keeps it straight the entire way, and I am confident that there's nothing wrong with the rocket, because I launched this design like 50 times already. Now, I tried to use MechJeb (2.5.1, game is 1.0.2). I added the external control box and enabled Smart A.S.S., then set it to SURF with default parameters (hdg 90 pitch 90 roll 0) and hit execute. It started rotating right away on launch, which I guess is fine, because it was getting to heading 90. Then it ascended to about 7000m and for some reason started deviating from zenith towards heading 90. I don't know why, but it was definitely intentional on its part. Anyway it tipped the rocket over after deviating for about 3-5 degrees (which is pretty normal for my rockets), did some kind of crazy loop, and eventually managed to return to the zenith course. I repeated the launch about 5 times, it does that every time. Does anyone have any idea what's up with that?

Smaller hitchhiker can. Big one is way too big. Tourist/save kerbal contracts in career often require just one passenger seat. Using command modules for that is a waste, because they are heavy and carry lots of unnecessary equipment.

Would be cool if high-level pilots could just navigate the maneuver nodes themselves. I realize that there are mods for that, but I kinda expected it to just be part of the game. It just seems natural. First you control the rocket manually, then get stability assist, then locking to various directions, then just tell the dude what to do and concentrate on high-level stuff. I'm actually not progressed enough in my campaign to get to this issue, but sitting and watching a launch every time is already getting old. In some cases I'd much rather fast forward it, if it weren't for the bugged physics warp.