Atkara

I played around with both the claw and asteroids a lot in 1.05, which is propably why I love Dres so much. Anyway, with most of my asteroid adventures involving Class E rocks and with no autostruts back then, I'd say I was taught a thing or two about maneuvering large & heavy things around

Heh... the last couple of days I've had vessels explode from 60g acceleration (go figure), upon loading them up. A bit earlier, I had seen one my Eeloo scanners/relays lose it's radiators. I mean, I saw them gracefully flying away. All incidents occurred in interplanetary space. Like you, I had a savegame to go back to and the hungry Kraken, stayed hungry

That's what you have to do, if you want to be in position to mine and lift 2700 units of ore (3.3k for this craft) from the surface of Ike and land it on Duna, as many, highly lucrative contracts often request. And if you can do that, why not build around it?

I don't think my solution would win beauty contest, but I wouldn't call it ugly either... Here's the orbital refinery too:

So far, I haven't really felt the need to fuel up anything on the ground. Tylo & Laythe will change that. I could've gone for a solution like the one you described -heck, I had one in testing and it worked as expected. The claw however, offers simplicity in both the design and the process itself. In the end -how did I say it yesterday? Ah, yes. "I'll pretend there's a fuel plug where I'm grabbing" In orbit, I'll use normal/shielded docking ports.

No, I think it's the same. X tons of ore, convert to the same tonnage in fuel. It's versatility what I was after: If I'm fueling up a NERVA propelled vessel, I'll convert to Lf only. if it's conventional, I'll convert to LOX. if it's NERVA propelled but is equipped with verniers (which is often the case) I'll fire up Lf & Ox separately, since I rarely want to top the Ox tanks. if I'm in need of monoprop, I'll convert to that. And I'll do this on the spot. Whether the vessel in question is docked on the refinery, or has met up with the miner (which carries it's own ISRU anyway) I'll convert to whatever I need, right there. In the case of the miner, if it has fuel to spare, I'll go hybrid.

Yeah, that's something I'd rather not do -especially with the tendency of surface bases to spaz out to oblivion, after each KSP update. As much as I love modular bases (and stations) my go-to solution is still the all-up, rigid and compact type. I've described it more extensively in another thread, but my "system" is based on orbital refineries, supplied (for the most part) by ISRU equipped surface miners, capable of bringing 3.3k units of ore in orbit around the majority of planets & moons. For Tylo & Laythe, whenever I get to deploy installations and crew, I'm going for an ISRU+Claw equipped surface miner, on wheels.

I don't use orbital fuel dumps, but orbital refineries instead. Refining ore on demand and converting it into whatever each craft needs (Lf, LOX, Monoprop) on the spot, seems much more versatile to me. Kerbin, Mun & Minmus currently have one around them. Mun & Minmus refineries are being supplied by ISRU equipped surface miners. I used to supply Kerbin's refinery also, from Minmus. But later on I opted for a combination of a spaceplane and an ore drone. If something is too big to dock with the refinery (which is often the case), the same spaceplane that carries ore, can be configured to bring up fuel, where the corresponding fuel drone will deliver the stuff. Spaceplanes also bring up crew (and often tourists, since I play career) to LKO and either set for the refinery, where they change vessels, or meet up straight with the vessel -whatever suits the situation better. The same happens with the returning crews/passengers. With multiple flights typically going on, I rarely have time for aerobraking so, I just get the returning vessels to circularize on their own. Orbital refineries like these, will be eventually distributed across "my" solar system. They'll be tasked with refueling the landers I'll eventually send there, and the 16-32seater (not counting the MK3 Cockpit in front) "space liners" I've also finalized and scheduled to launch, when the network is complete. Surface miners have accompanied my expeditions on Duna, Gilly, Moho & Dres. Coming up next is propably Eeloo and then, Jool and it's moons, where I finished satellite deployment last night and boy, was that a task... my head is still ringing

I wasn't using the forums much either (let alone posting), which was like re-inventing the wheel on my own at times. I wasn't trying to downplay or devalue the forums in any way -God no! I was simply surprised and nothing more than that. The part about jumping around comes from videos and streams I've watched, where players were doing just that and I had decided I would do no such thing, even if it was the only way

Up until I saw Hotel26's post and browsed upwards to see what was going on, I assumed people were generally aware of this. I mean, if I stumbled upon it by just playing (I'm a relative late-comer in KSP forums) they must have too, right? In retrospect, I suppose the "jump around till you hit your mark" is so popular, that it's -most propably- assumed to be the only way to do it and the subject isn't being brought up often.

To be honest, I was going for the side-mounted claw too. But the bottom mounted variant gives better contact with the lander I'm planning to use for Tylo. It will also work better with the small-to-medium ssto I have in mind for Laythe. The side-to-top mounted alternative, is for fueling up a heavier ssto. But it's too early to think about sending these two over there. All-in-one solutions tend to be big. My orbital refineries are like that: 24k ore capacity, living space for 32 Kerbals, MPL, ISRU, some fuel storage (because slanted adapters look nice) ... yeah. At least they can fit it inside a fairing... barely

With the survey/scan/relay satellites deployment around Jool and it's moons underway, I decided to revisit an old idea I had about a mobile surface miner. The plan is to use it on the surface of Tylo & Laythe. I've opted for a claw instead of a docking port and I'll pretend there's a fuel plug where I'm grabbing It's big. No fairing will fit the wheels and at the same time, these are the ones I want to use. The resulting drag will make the launch challenging to say the least, but it's doable. Below, are a couple of alternate placements for the claw:

This. Lock radial out on surface mode and the rest is about maintaining hover with the throttle, zeroing in with RCS and keeping your cool. Eversince I've had this particular "epiphany" myself (that is, my brain got unstuck and figured out the obvious), surface recoveries with the claw turned from a nightmare to avoid, to "sure thing, bring it!"

337 years? The first is the 1.0.5 career I abandoned when Hullcam VDS was taking too long to update, Asteroid Day was still out of the game, it was also taking too long and I wanted to play on 1.1. The second is the one I'm currently playing on. I'm sure someone else will bring in the really big guns

Not really a problem, if you combine contracts. And if you happen to move towards re-usability at some point, you'll end up earning millions, at the expense of... fuel

The two recovery vessels arrived at Eve and went straight to Gilly. The first completed it's recovery, while the second got topped before continuing to Moho Also, Val and the rest of the expedition arrived at Dres

Lots of work between Duna & Ike today. Turns out I didn't have 2 rescues there, but 3, with a 4th added a bit later. This meant that the 6 seater shuttle I sent, wouldn't fit them all, with 3 tourists and a pilot, already onboard. Anyway, got them all out of their pods and had them land on both bodies with the 2-seater surface miner that's operating there -including the tourists and the shuttle's pilot. Since my surface outposts come with 2 MPLs, and sufficient living space, I recorded everyone's progress and left two kerbals to be picked up by the next flight. Jeb, Bill & Bob got back from Duna and settled in LKO, where a spaceplane picked up both them and the science. Explorer 1 will be refueled, restocked and prepped for the next mission. Oddly, the Duna fly-by contract wasn't satisfied. I guess it was expecting me to plunge the damn ship in the atmosphere and land it. This, I may do with the 6-seater, once it gets back -it's primarily a lifting body so, once it's evacuated from tourists & personnel, I could attempt a re-entry, followed by a gentle splash down. We'll see. Kerbin Sentinel's current orbit wouldn't get acknowledged by the next asteroid contract -it had to be corrected. Also, both rescue & recovery vessels departed for Eve and Eeloo finally got it's own pair of relays. And it seems I'm a happy player again, after editing spring settings on the landing legs of all my outposts & miners and the wheels of all my cars currently in service. Physics easing seems to be satisfied -for now

Spent most of today's session reaching this naughty girl, stranded ~480km from my Duna outpost. The rescue craft, also carrying 3 tourists, paying for sightseeing, is on the way: Currently, there's a surface miner, operating between Duna & Ike. It will take care of both the tourists and the stranded Kerbal. In other news:

It's "Gerry Anderson's Space 1999 Pack", right? Decided to bite the bullet and checked it out. The transporter weighs about 308 tons and the fuel capacity isn't enough to get into orbit -or so it seemed. Turns out that you have to activate main power, fuel reactor, cold fusion and main bus on the fuselage module, along with the generator on the cockpit module. Then the thing magically produces power and fuel, faster than the engines will ever consume. Not only it gets you to orbit -it takes you anywhere. @BaelRathLianThat's what you've been missing. Time for me to get back to doing things the proper way You're not asking about the craft, but the launch pad. My bad. Anyway, tried to arrange engines and fuel tanks around it. But the way part symmetry works (basically, it doesn't) and the launch pad's high impact tolerance, makes me think it's meant to be hyperedited into position.

For me, it starts with the following lander: It departs from it's assigned station in LKO, gets to either of Kerbin's moons and lands near the stranded pod (20-30m if I'm in a good day, 150-200 if not). Then I get it to hover, lock radial out once close, then use RCS to guide the claw above the pod. Once there, I cut throttle and capture. If the legs don't get to touch on the ground, the large reaction wheel will do it's best not to let it tip over. Obviously, it doesn't have the fuel to get back to Kerbin. So, once it reaches orbit, the following ISRU equipped miner comes in: The miner isn't there for surface recoveries. It's typically used to complete mining contracts and supply an orbital refinery with ore. Anyway, once fueled up, the lander gets back to Kerbin, where the following type of spaceplane is waiting, shown below in station assembly configuration: In debris recovery configuration, it has a grabbing unit attached inside the cargo bay. It also carries a maneuvering unit, also equipped with a grabbing unit, shown below in station assembly duty: Once the lander and the spaceplane meet up in LKO, the maneuvering unit grabs the pod and secures it on the grabbing unit inside the MK3 cargo bay, which has been set as the spaceplane's control point. The lander departs to meet up with it's assigned station and the spaceplane lands at KSC: For small pod recoveries, I use a MK2 spaceplane, but I won't bore you with more shots

It's because of Gilly's low gravity. Doesn't take much for a Kerbal to get into orbit. Since the default camera view is set on auto, your view transitions accordingly. With the "V" key, you can switch between auto, free, orbital & chase view. Pick which one suits you

Haven't heard of such a mod. But: It's not atmosphere what you're after, but an inertia dampening "system". You'd also need something that calculates your craft's velocity in reference to the nearest celestial body. That is, so that you'll come to a relative, instead of an absolute stop -unless you'd like to see how long it would take for the entire galaxy to leave you behind, if you opted for the latter There's also the problem of how to get into orbit around a celestial body. I suppose you'd need a system that tampers with your spacecraft's mass, so that you'd enter into a synchronous orbit, at a much lower altitude than you'd normally need. This, ensures a smooth atmospheric interface, without all the fireworks, usually coming with it. Since we've reached this point, we could also add a hyperdrive, and the more I look at it, the more I seem to be describing Elite: Dangerous, without the "dangerous" part (or at least, without most of it)

I had a feeling this would be the case. Don't feel bad, we've all made that mistake at some point. Merry Christmas

Congrats on your first successful rendezvous & docking operation. Sweaty/shaky hands and failed attempts is part of the learning process so, don't lose your cool. As you get more of these under your belt, you'll notice more bits falling into place. Doing it is one thing: understanding why it happens the way it does, is another -and this comes with practice. You can right click on the docking port and select "aim camera". This shifts the viewpoint to focus on it, giving you a better view of the docking process. It's something I do, once I'm aligned with the docking port of the spacecraft/station I want to dock to. As for docking mode and from a keyboard player's perspective, it basically "slaves" translation to the well used to, WASD keys, interchanging with rotation via the spacebar. The closure rates during docking are -and should be- low, giving you plenty of time to switch back and forth. Target tracking works only for docking ports attached on the spacecraft's axis of symmetry. Any off-axis, radially attached, or the Inline & Mk2 docking ports used in spaceplanes and it won't track properly. If you go that way, you'll have to know how to do it manually. This is where mods like the docking port alignment indicator, or the navball docking alignment indicator come in handy, if you want to speed up the process, or just want to check how did you do on your own (I often do both). Oh: and careful rcs ports placement, but you knew that already

I generally don't give my spacecraft any special names, other than the name of the planet/moon they operate on/around and what they are (orbital lab, station, ATV, relay, surveyor, sentinel, etc). For example: An asteroid miner operating in Dres orbit: Dres Asteroid Miner. A surface outpost operating on Moho: Moho Surface Outpost. Things aren't much different in spaceplanes: With two main designs (light and heavy) and variants of them adapted for different purposes (cargo, passenger transport, debris recovery, science, ore/fuel delivery, etc) these craft are named like: Light SSTO for passenger transport: SSTO Mk1a (Passengers) Heavy SSTO for fuel delivery: SSTO MK2g (LfOx) For the record, the light SSTO (Mk1) comes in 6 variants and the heavy one (Mk2) in 9. If I decide to send one of them to operate on Laythe (which I propably will), I'll prefix it with the moon's name.