Aegolius13

Yeah, I was thinking the same. Given the significant difficulties making props/rotors work with normal aerodynamic parts, I'd be fine with a "magic" part that eats fuel [edit: eats torque / rotation / angular momentum / whatever] and puts out thrust according to some simplified model. That's kinda like what the jet engines and intakes do - they're certainly not modelling the little bits of air going through the intakes and turbomachinery, but they work fine from a gameplay perspective.

Besides the helicopter blades generally being bigger (and aesthetics), I wonder what the functional differences will be between the two classes. I would think the propeller blades would be intended to spin faster, but not sure how this would be reflected though in-game properties. Perhaps helicopter blades have more bite (more air resistance but more thrust) to reflect higher pitch?

Not quite responsive, but ShadowZone did an interesting video with a solar-powered Eve quadcopter. He had four gigantors, each feeding one rotor. Some old info states that a gigantor produces about 14 pirate-ninjas ec/sec on Eve's surface, with 100% exposure. So that's a little less than a fuel cell array. Assuming one array can serve one rotor, if I have my math right, consumption would be 0.045 units/sec combined LFO per rotor, or 2.7 per minute, or 162 per hour. That's not bad, considering he used an hour (so ~650 units LFO) to get up to 19km altitude. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXdC1F6Ss2k

Would love an alternate mode to let them run on LFO. Eve is crying out for these things. Though I suppose the fuel efficiency would be rather not-good.

It's not in-game, but I find this chart quite handy: https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/CommNet

I was able to assign it to the normal action groups (1-9, etc), the same as a typical part. Select the action group, select the controller, and then chose the function "play program" or whatever it's called. I think you can also assign action groups to reverse the direction of the program (quite handy) and change if/how the program loops.

I'd add that the Mun rotates quite slowly, so that the difference in landing delta-v between a retrograde munar orbit (#1) and a prograde / regular orbit (#2) is going to be pretty negligible. That said, there's no particular reason not to aim for the prograde orbit -- unless you want the free return trajectory in case of a problem that keeps you from injecting into Munar orbit. I always aim for the prograde orbit, but mostly out of habit.

At least in the old days, the reentry "tutorial: would kill you every time until you independently found and changed a fairly obscure setting (the altitude for parachute deployment). For some reason the tutorial (unlike the regular game) started with an unsafe setting. So I'd say that was the hard way. I think (???) this is long gone, thankfully.

For that trip, you will start from the bottom where it says Kerbin, go up one stop (to LKO), and then follow the gray path leading to Mun. Now let's read it! Going from the launch pad to an 80km LKO orbit takes 3,400 m/s. Of course, this is a lot higher than orbital velocity, but that's due to the drag and atmospheric losses. Pretty straightforward so far. Then imagine you burn from the correct point in this orbit to make an encounter with the Mun -- which means you have to get your apoapsis up to the Mun's altitude. This takes about 860 m/s. Now, if you just did that burn and stopped, you'd end up with just a flyby of the Mun. So the next step would be to circularize your orbit, by burning retrograde at your munar periapsis. The chart says this will take 310 m/s to get into a 14km circular orbit (we can therefore work backwards and understand that the flyby periapsis the chart had in mind was also 14 km). Finally, to land at the mun takes about 580 m/s. This is a little higher than the amount of orbital velocity you need to shed, again because of gravity losses. So, if you add these all up, the chart says you'll need (3400+860+310+580) = 5,150 m/s of delta-v on the pad in order to land on the Mun. For the return trip (if there is one... sorry kerbals), you can just reverse the numbers, because the maneuvers are symmetrical. The one exception is on planets with atmospheres. As you probably know, you don't need to spend delta-v landing at Kerbin (beyond a small deorbit burn), since the atmosphere soaks up that energy for you. The chart denotes this with the little triangle pointing the way you can use aerobraking (i.e, to reenter Kerbin, but not to leave).

Unfortunately that's not a question that we can answer without knowing a little more about the ship. Can you post a screenshot? It would also help to know more about what you want to do with it. If you only plan on flying it around for a few minutes, you don't need much fuel at all. But if you're trying to fly all the way around the planet or something, of course much more would be needed.

Welcome! One thing to add -- the levels don't take effect immediately once you accomplish the tasks (e.g., planting a flag). To have the level up actually apply, there are two options. One is to return the kerbal to Kebin and recover them, so they go back to the astronaut center. The other option is to bring the kerbal to a Mobile Processing Lab anywhere, right click and hit "level up Kerbals," and it will apply the experience without the need to return to Kerbin. The points toward leveling up are the same either way, the lab can just be more convenient if you're visiting another system or something.

Two options I've found: 1. In the VAB, set the maximum or minimum angle to zero. Then you can use the corresponding action command to return it. But obviously, this comes with the downside of restricting your range, and this can't be altered in flight as far as I know. 2. Use the controller module, and create a program that returns the servo to zero. Assign this program to an action group. Also, if you have two favored settings (i.e., retracted and deployed), you can use one controller to toggle between them, by having one action button switch the direction of the program, and the other action button run the program. This seems to me like the better choice, since the contoller doesn't have much downside (e.g., negligable weight).

Forgot one point: IMO, gravity assists are a lot harder when leaving than when entering. It's pretty hard to get your exit trajectory where you want it. So I don't usually bother. One alternative trick to consider, if you're leaving from Pol: I think this is often called an Oberth Maneuver. The idea is to drop your periapsis down to very near Jool (i.e, so you have a very elliptical orbit with Jool at peri and Pol at apo). Then, when at the Jool peri, perform your exit burn. You get tons of help from the Oberth effect and your apo is already near escape velocity to begin with. The trick is to time it so that elliptical orbit "points" in the right direction -- i.e, so that after the escape burn, you're heading the opposite direction from Jool's orbit around the sun. EDIT - Ehh, I did a little testing on this, and the Oberth dive doesn't make much of a difference in delta-v budget for Pol>Kerbin. And it's quite fussy to time right. So I'd probably suggest using the direct method.

You may have trouble getting the apo on your elliptical orbit to hit Pol/Bop, but it should be relatively cheap for you to circularize at apoapsis and then figure out a rendezvous. If you're in a high circular orbit it should be cheap to plane match as well. That is the most powerful antenna (it's even with the big relay dish, but the relay function doesn't affect range and shouldn't be necessary here. This very useful table confirms that if you have a maxed out ground station, one of those is good anywhere in the system (assuming no line of sight blockage). https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/CommNet Delta-v maps are arguably less useful at Jool than anywhere else since there's so much variation based on gravity assists. If you nail them the insertion will cost you almost nothing, but sometimes a mediocre assist doesn't actually help. My rule of thumb is that a transfer to Jool takes around 2,000 m/s, and a return from Laythe is about 1,000. And it's good to reserve a few hundred m/s for course corrections. Not sure how the outer moons compare with Laythe on return delta-v - they're higher in the gravity well (which is good), but you get less Oberth effect (which is bad). As mentioned, insertion is a wildcard due to gravity assists, but it should take the same amount to enter as to leave, so for Laythe at least it might be around 1,000 m/s. It's really, really high. I've gone up to 7km/s reentry speed and been fine. Jool should be well under that. Just make sure you have total coverage. If you have the lander delta-v, leaving in Pol orbit makes sense. The better inclination will remove one variable from plotting your return, which is always nice. How you land on Bop is not very important for how you leave. You should be able to leave in an equatorial orbit, but you will need to (1) add a LOT of normal/antinormal in your exit burn, and (2) time it so that you leave when Bop intersects the equatorial plane (i.e., its ascending or descending node).

I would add to use "absolute" mode when you adjust the landing gear, and make sure to check all three axes. Sometimes they look straight, but aren't actually when put to the test.

What is the engine with most thrust? The Mammoth. (rimshot) As mentioned above, the Whiplash is the go-to engine for this, and is almost certainly a copy of the SR-71 Improving aerodynamics is the most likely to help at this point. But if you find you need even more high-speed performance, the other option is the Rapier, which can go higher and faster. But it's not so good until you hit ~450m/s or higher.

I can't tell if your pod is crewed, but having an engineer (preferably a high-level one) can speed up mining by quite a bit But as mentioned above, heat is your main problem (that 0.6% number means you'd be getting ~200x more work out of it with adequate cooling).

Are you looking at just COM and COL, or also center of thrust? That's the one that takes a lot more work on a VTOL than a normal plane. To get the thing to go straight up, you need the COT to go right over the COM. And ideally, you want the COM to stay in the exact same place as you burn fuel, so you don't run into torque later in flight.

Makes me wonder what the other best candidates for launch sites outside the Kerbin SOI are. Good candidates seem like: Ike. Pretty low gravity, rapid rotation around Duna makes launch timing easy, Duna aerobraking can save delta-v on return trips ,somewhat central location in the system. However, Duna's long orbital period means launch windows to the further-out planets are few and far between. And it's pretty bumpy. Val. Moderately low gravity, centrally located in Jool system, easy to land on, short orbital period. Gravity assists and aerobraking (at Laythe) can help with return trips. Biggest problem might be avoiding unwanted interactions with Tylo and Laythe on the way in/out. Infrequent launch windows to other outer planets. Pol. Low delta-v needs for landing and takeoff, but not quite as hard to stay put on as Gilly. Far enough out that you won't get those unwanted interactions. Low-inclination orbit compared to Bop. Cons are a pretty long orbital period around Jool, and a surprisingly high delta-v requirement to transfer or circularize from lower Jool orbits. Same launch window issue as Val.

And you make a neat gun. But yeah, agree with the posters above, this is an intentional gameplay mechanic design. If solar worked all the time, there would be no need for the RTG. That said, since in-game time does not matter 99% of the time (i.e., unless you have some contract about to expire), time-based mechanics are more of a nuisance than anything.

To use autostruts you have to right-click a part and add them manually. So you wouldn't be using them without knowing about it. But you can always check a copy of the craft in the VAB to make sure. I had a problem like this a long time ago, and it ended up being because I had parts clipped into each other too far, so it set off the game's collision detection. You mention this has happened before - was it always with mining ships? If so, could be something about the drills. E.g., if they don't have enough ground clearance they can push your ship off the ground. One other thing to try - go into the alt-f12 menu and try the various protective cheats, like unbreakable parts and no overheating. If one of these stops the ship from blowing up, that's a good lead on pinpointing the problem. Can you post a screenshot? That might also help us zero in on the problem.

You can aerobrake really really fast as long as you have heat shield coverage. I think I logged 7,000 m/s on bad return from Moho. You can use a less radical aerobrake to capture and eventually circularize -- I think that's the more common definition of aerobrake, in fact. But it tends to take a lot of fine-tuning your periapsis to the right amount, so you don't reenter (peri too low) or end up on a fly-by (peri too high). This usually means lots of reloading, since every craft handles pretty differently in this regard. As I might have mentioned, the most important thing is to make sure you capture on the first pass. Once that's accomplished, you can aerobrake at your leisure, taking as many passes as necessary to get to the desired orbit. To end up in a stable orbit, you'll always need a little fuel to raise your periapsis above the atmosphere, but that takes very little. TL;DR - with full aerobraking exploitation, and a good-ish transfer, you should have plenty of delta-v. If you're worried about your heat resistance, you'll want to get the most efficient possible transfer to save fuel, use ALMOST everything left on the capture burn, at the same time aerobraking as much as heat allows, and just try to capture in one pass. Then even a heat-vulnerable craft can gradually work down the excess velocity.

I ran into the same problem on an Eve lander. I found the simplest way to solve it was to turn on one of my lander's off-center engines (I had 6 in a ring) just a smidge. The off-center thrust was enough to get the heat shield tumbling, and it took maybe a unit of LFO, if that.

Another option, kinda cheaty but not fundamentally different from reloading -- go into the alt-f12 menu, select "cheats," then "hack gravity" and turn it down a bunch. Then you should be able to easily right the ship with reaction wheels or RCS. The "radial out" SAS command is works well for this. Of course, this assumes you have a probe core or Kerbal onboard to operate the lander. Though you might also use this to augment the jetpack-push strategy.

You could also try putting an autostrut on the wings. I'm not positive, but from my testing so far it looks like they do move when a robotic part moves.