Blasty McBlastblast

I had a rescue contract for a landed kerbonaut on the mun, but every time I got within 2.3km the stranded craft would spontaneously explode. Many, many attempts were made to approach gently from various directions, but death was always the result.

Lagrange points as stable orbit locations only makes sense if there is some mechanism making all other orbits decay or become unstable, having one without the other is kind of pointless. Currently all orbits are stable, and by introducing decay or instability you would detract from the entry level fun and friendly nature of KSP Having said that, it would be nice to have some educational DLC covering the finer details of real orbits (legrange points, procession, solar pressure, lumpy gravity, atmosphere decay, etc..)

oooh badges!

use the tilda ~ (the wiggly line next to the 1 button) backspace is now your abort hotkey

It would be cool to see SRB nose cones (nozzle gimbaling too) become available as a part upgrade at a higher tech tier

you could try signing up to github, then following the prompts there are some other options for sharing listed in the sub forums i recommended:

oh an easy question... try the following: play the game, and get a feel for anything you feel might be missing or that you could improve try out some mods made by other people to see how it works, also maybe the mod you want to do already exists? keep an eye on the add-ons sub forum, there you will find guides, the latest releases, etc.. start modding by adjusting config files using module manager, then try making your own new parts, when you feel confident try making a plugin oh, and don't forget to have fun!

I like to choose a historical name from a similar mission, then add the letter K. Manned craft become Merkury, Kermini, Kerpollo, Kolumbia, Kerblab, and KSS, while unmanned craft are Kersplorer, Kerboneer, Kerbidium, K-train, etc.. Also everything launched (or crashed) gets an accurate sequence number thanks to Project Manager which is amazingly easy to use!

I guess whether or not the aeroplane will fly depends almost entirely* on the amount of air passing by the wing, resulting (or not) in lift either via the Bernoulli effect (pressure differential) or Newtonian deflection (conservation of momentum) To achieve the outcome of air moving past the wing you could either: move the wing through the stationary air move the air around the stationary wing The first option is precluded by the conditions of the experiment (i.e. a fictional magically-powered conveyor that can instantaneously reach any speed such that friction is provided to prevent the craft from moving forward.) However the second option is still viable, and can be achieved via several means such as a gust of wind, prop wash, or even an extreme boundary layer of air propelled by the moving surface of the belt as it approaches warp speed! *Thrust vectoring or a high AOA of might also cause the aeroplane to break free of the conveyor's clutches through sheer brute force!

You missed some early science! Don't forget to do a second EVA report while jumping for "EVA while flying over..."

I came here expecting discussion about a second Pol moon around Jool! But I guess a story mode would be cool too... What would the story mode be about anyhow? An arms-race to make a reliable ICBM. Secrets, espionage and sabotage abound! Celebrating history with a blow-by-blow recreation of the great manned space-race. Overcoming the struggle of maintaining an ageing space station against disasters, cutbacks, and public disinterest. Running a plucky space-startup, raising capital and cutting costs to beat your business competitors to those big juicy contracts. Settling Mars (either Von Braun or Elon style) and making a brave new world for your colonists.

The Realism Overhaul thread has a good list of recommended mods, also Scott Manley has made an excellent youtube video explaining the whole realism process

Hi @ReigningKing and welcome to the forums! You will find a wealth of information in the Gameplay Questions and Tutorials sub-forum, for an example check out the thread I've linked below: My quick tips for you would be: check yo' staging! add more struts, add moar boosters, mod it until it breaks, and don't forget to have fun!

Pass-out missions can be beaten by flying in a tight banked horizontal circle... (e.g. around the flagpole.) A pair of juno engines should provide sufficient power

Hi @Nervenkobold_GER and welcome to the forums! It sounds like you have discovered that most RO engines have limited ignitions and/or ullage requirements for fuel. From the wiki: Restarting an engine is a tricky prospect, requires just the right conditions, and even then most engines only have a limited number of restarts. Issues such as freefall causing propellants to float away from their feed lines complicate the matter. To solve this, LVs use small motors called "ullage motors" to settle the propellants before igniting their main engines. Spacecraft often use RCS for this purpose. Assuming propellants are settled, the engine must be able to ignite; most first stage engines have only one ignition (often provided externally), though some upper stage engines have multiple ignitions. Because of their simplicity--needing neither to ignite their propellants nor spin up a turbopump--pressure-fed hypergolic engines have effectively infinite ignitions. Indeed, that's all RCS is: sets of small hypergolic (or catalyzed monopropellant or cold-gas) pressure-fed engines. https://github.com/KSP-RO/RealismOverhaul/wiki/False-KSP-Lessons#myth-rocket-engines-are-infinitely-restartable

@neistridlar another fine review Our BS designers are currently considering your recommendations for sepratron boosted drink service, perhaps even adding "rocket fuel" cocktails! On another (maybe related to performance) note, do you know if the drag-cube bug afflicting airplane plus parts has been resolved? I've been holding back from playing with this mod until i hear it has been fixed...

The contract window button is located at the top right of your screen in flight, In map mode you will be able to see the orbital paths of everything (even planets if you zoom out with the mouse wheel). You can centre your view on other objects by pressing "tab", pressing the tilde (wiggly line ~ above tab) will return focus to your ship. (note: unfortunately you can not tab to stranded ships until after you have approached them) Rescuing stranded kerbals from orbit is quite a challenge early on, in real life even NASA tried and failed to do this with the Gemini 4 mission! You will need to master getting to space, achieving a specific orbit, arranging the rendezvous, and then space walking or docking to transfer crew. Scott Manley has a nice video tutorial on how to rendezvous (the game version is old, but the method is still the same). Don't feel bad if you need to cancel these contracts for now (you can do this from the Mission Control building) to progress with your career. Upgrading the tracking station is almost prerequisite to doing rescue contacts as it will allow you to target the stranded vessel and plan your approach, without any targeting you will just have to eyeball it. Possible, but very hard!

It was a kinda cool video, but i have a question: why not use the capsule's internal decoupler? As a side note, the capsule pictured rolled around the KSC for about 10mins before coming to rest for recovery!! I wonder what happens when you roll it down a mountain side....

@Kodiax welcome to the forums To beat those early "test at altitude" contracts try the following: Make sure you have the correct test part on your ship! Pay attention whether the part must be activated by "staging" (space bar) or "run test" (right-click part in flight) Use a liquid fuel engine (not an SRB) to give yourself better control, Place some stabilising fins nice and low, this will keep things pointed upwards even without pilots or SAS. During the flight: Open the contract window so that you can see the details min & max speed (below i had from 150m/s to 240m/s) min & max altitude (below i had from 8,000m to 11,000m) Check yo' staging! Take off like normal, then throttle down the engine so that you don't over-speed, Gently climb to the testing altitude, reducing thrust to maintain speed, Eyeball that contract window, when everything turns green do the test! Bonus tips: Sometimes you will get a contract to test an engine in flight, but this does not mean that you need to haul an extra engine to stage at the right time! While on the launchpad activate the engine via right click (instead of staging) and then throttle up to take off, you can now stage the engine later in the flight to do the test. To test SRB in flight you couuld use the tip above, but the easiest way is to empty out all of the heavy solid fuel in the VAB and then use a liquid fuelled engine to haul your payload to the correct height & speed.

Hearing rumours of rare mountainous splashed-science, mission controllers hastily dispatched Jeb with all the experiments they could gather! After a continent spanning detour (due to a missing decimal point when setting the custom waypoint) Jeb arrives and spots his target A fancy barrel roll was used to enter into the extremely steep decent required! To maximise the landing area Jeb hugs the cliff face, with flaps deployed and reverse thrust engaged to slow the plummet descent... Maintaining ~100m/s as the water looms up allows enough air over the control surfaces to pull up sharply, splashing down safely with metres to spare! At this stage Jeb learns a terrible truth: the so-called mountain lake is sadly only a coastal biome. Seems we could have left the science at home! Takeoff is achieved at a comfortable 25m/s thanks to lots of wing area set at a generous 5° AOA (thanks to feedback from @neistridlar in the regional jet challenge) Climbing out was easier than getting in, with the single wheesley* proving more than enough thrust to climb vertically.

this mod is a-head of it's time...

Today Ellrie Kerman made the sun set in the east while on her way to complete a contract

what the F??? I have thousands of gameplay hours and I've never heard of this... until now!?! If anyone needs me i'll be sobbing quietly in remembrance of all my misaligned craft :'(

could be a flat-kerbin konspiracy? hopefully steam has a method to purge spambot reviews once reported...

how i visualise forum users in my head: