Atkara

It's random

I don't think it's 1.4.x specific. I recall seeing them being like that in 1.3.x too.

Wouldn't judge you (or anyone) if you did it. It's just that I tried picturing myself doing it and couldn't. But it is possible, if one wanted to

I suppose so, yeah.

Meanwhile, on the surface of Dres: -Umm... Mission Control...? -Receiving you loud and clear Dres Outpost, is there anything to report? -The lander that just came in... was Jebediah Kerman piloting it? -That's a negative, he's currently on his way back from Eeloo. Is there a problem? -Well, the thing touched down a little bit closer than expected and we thought maybe... -What distance are we talking about? -According to the range finder, 18.6 meters. Any closer and we would lose our radiators. -Understood Dres Outpost, we'll look into it. Talk to you again at the science data packets transmission. Mission Control out. *Makes sure mike is off* Okay, which one of you gave him remote access to the lander?

Did some more work on my new surface miner: Replaced the grey panels with 2 structural wings, which brought the part count down and made the top section look a bit better. The most drastic change however, was done on the underside: Changed the orientation of the ISRU and enclosed it in two adapters. The radiators are attached on them, not the ore tanks (The game was kind enough to let me drag them where I wanted). The result is a much cleaner underside, which has been bugging me, eversince I started working on this. I think I'm happy with it now

I do a lot of 1.5 TWR launches, with my upper stages often pushing no more than 0.9 -although I shouldn't call them "upper", since they are my rhino powered core stages, really. Anyway, my usual launch profile is as following: Gravity turn starts at about 1000m alt, aiming for 3.5km alt & 75 degrees angle. Then, I engage prograde follow, aiming for 15km & ~40-35 degrees (throttle adjustments may be necessary). At this point, I disengage prograde follow, to avoid incidents like what you described. When the navball switches to orbit mode, I manually dive back into prograde and lock prograde follow again. Engine cutoff comes at slightly above the target altitude. This is done to account for drag losses, as there will be some, even on prograde follow. Circularize at apoapsis. Give it a try

Not much this last couple of weeks, as I've been playing mostly other games. However, I did find some time to come up with a new surface miner: It's shorter than what I currently use, which makes touchdowns more comfortable -even though I haven't had any of my old miners tip over so far. Given how much cramped everything is, I first tested with radiator panels only, which didn't turn out well. Drills & ISRU overheated and shut down (yeah, silly me). So I went for a hybrid model. The ISRU (inside the adapter) will be cooled by 4 radiators, with a pair of thermal control systems taking over the rest, including the drills. Simulations ran for the worst conditions possible (Moho) show that temperatures will be kept in check. Power is provided by a combination of 4 gigantors and 2 fuel cell arrays. I also put 4 RTGs in the mix (hence the cost) which I don't really need, but hey, why not? It's capabilities are pretty much the same with what I currently use so, if I decide to go ahead and deploy it, it's ready. I also thought of something that could be used as a boat on Laythe: For this, I finished gliding tests. Getting it to splashdown safely will be somewhat tricky, but definitely doable. All that remains, is testing it's behavior during atmospheric interface. The undercarriage will be kept in place, as I will need to get it out of the water, in order to refuel it and just beaching it won't do. Update: Atmospheric interface test on the boat completed. Passed with flying colors, all the way to splashdown.

Oh the airbrake is personal preference. I often have the engines at 10-15% thrust on final approach, so I use it to keep airspeed in check. I also use it to bleed off speed in case I come in too hot, if I can't be bothered to do a zig-zag.

I don't remember suggesting anything about the landing gear -must've been Hotel26. There were struts? Didn't see them but now that you mention it, I'll take them out since I basically autostrutted almost the whole thing -helps in keeping things where they should be and... yes, I forgot to mention that

Did a quick test. Before taking it to orbit though, I did a couple of things I usually do on my planes: Assigned specific roles to the control surfaces and toned down yaw & roll authority. Rooted the Type A Structural Wing to the main wing assembly. Switched the normal parachute for a drogue chute and added an airbrake. Suspensions also got their dampers cranked to 2 and springs to 0.8. Feels alright. Also: Are these fuel states any similar to what you had, once in orbit? Besides that, re-entry was largely trouble-free. I undershot the KSC but that's me, doing things in a hurry and not paying attention. So I had to burn some fuel to pass the mountain range. Upon landing, I had 225 Lf & 995 Ox, as I didn't do anything up there, besides the de-orbit burn. Looks good overall, although I would cut down some Oxidizer to maximize it's available DV -at least in the way I fly it.

Sure, I'll take her for a spin

A small suggestion if I may: Once you've flown the plane enough to know it, take out the excess oxidizer.

I visit every now and then, whenever I want to know the profession of the Kerbals I set out to grab as, accepting the rescue contract adds them to the 'assigned' tab. But I have hired a bunch on an old career, as I was terribly short on engineers at the time and a launch window I didn't want to miss, was coming up. Also, back in 1.0.5 iirc, I accidentally fired all the orange suits -thought I was in the crew selection tab, while I had switched to the astronaut complex. Obviously I loaded up the hard save

Not sure if I understand the spirit of the question (is it literal or otherwise) but you can just go to the astronaut complex and click on the kerbal you want to fire. A 'x' will appear to the right, allowing you to dismiss it.

For the most part, it depends on the type of payload, it's impact tolerance and the planet it's coming down to. If either of these 3 requires a heat shield jettison, I'll do it.

Just paste the direct link to the image as you type. It'll show up.

Fueled up Jeb's ride in time for the Eeloo -> Kerbin transfer. We should be seeing him, Bob & Bill in 4 years or so. Also, a bunch of rescues and recoveries around Dres & Duna: Meanwhile on Eve... This flag just doesn't want to stay put...

You're not the only one. I first saw Das Valdez using this particular arrangement during one of his livestreams. Naturally, I copied the idea on my current career's first landers

Welcome back buddy Greetings from Eeloo: Main camp. Yes Jeb, you're a long way from home The true heroes of the expedition The rest of Jeb's ride which, I'd better start fueling up ASAP. According to TWP, if I want to bring him and the gang back anytime soon-ish, the time to go is now

I do

Busy day today. The final pieces of equipment arrived at Dres, along with a rescue craft and a recovery drone. A drone also entered orbit around Duna to recover another pod. A sentinel probe arrived at it's pre-designated orbit and started monitoring Eeloo which, around the same time, received the expedition sent to it. As expected, all craft were low on fuel after circularization, including the miner. So it borrowed fuel from the rest, in order to land and in turn, prep them for landing. A rather decent ore concentration (11.5%) was located inside a crater along the equator and the process began. Most of the craft are now on the surface, the customary flag has been raised and the first bunch of data was sent back to KSC. There's still a general purpose lander in orbit and Jeb's ship, which also arrived. Once they're down, I'll start working on those rescues.

Figured the dampers must've been the reason why my planes didn't seem to jump up and down. Had them cranked to 2, as part of my 1.3.x "stop making my stuff jump to their destruction" solution. I did have to set my springs higher for 1.4.4. Most of them are now sitting at 0.8.

Why not disable the "resource transfer obeys crossfeed rules" option and live happily ever after?

Maybe one of these will do?