xRDK

Ok, so I tried what you said and the edge grab didn't work, it clipped through, but you were right about the correct angle - I tried a directly centre grab and got it!! https://ibb.co/gF4sLT A slight miscalculation on descent saw me basically loose everything except for the probe core and the arm, oops... Rather than load the quick save though, I let it play out (basically because I'm lazy) and the heatshield absorbed the 30m/s impact, leaving the remaining parts undamaged; https://ibb.co/mKvMEo Contract complete!! Thanks so much, it's been driving me nuts.

I didn't think of trying the edge, good shout - I'll give that a go. Have spent all night trying to design something, I initially tried 2 mk3 100 cargo bays, I used 3 bicouplers to join them together in a kinda pyramid fashion but it was soo heavy and difficult to control, so I didn't manage to capture the module - in hindsight, I probably should've tried RCs. After that I built this; https://postimg.cc/image/422w3vqvf/ It had an identical section that was supposed to dock to the top, to hold the module in place but after capturing the module and switching to the other half to dock them together - I saw the module and ship were violently shaking, when I switched back the module was clipped half through the ship, it then managed to shake itself free and flew off at an alarming pace, so I loaded the quick save and abandoned the idea of docking. I managed to get it to 23,000m or so with the picture but then I ran out of fuel, as soon as the engines stopped (even with the heatshield inflated) it flew out and eventually blew up I'll try the edge grabbing tomoz - thanks.

Hello, So I had a mission to recover a module, I had no idea what it was as it just showed as 'Unknown' - so I made a small-ish recovery probe but when I managed to catch up to it, I've found it's a 5m fairing; https://ibb.co/iw7ufT Uhhhhhh?? Anyone got any ideas on how exactly I'm supposed to safely bring this back to Kerbin? The grabbing arm won't grab it, so I'm not sure how I'm expected to return it? Also you might notice I have a single twich engine on my probe - well I fired them up and the heatshield, that's no longer present, blew up taking one of the twich engines with it (facepalm). Thanks in advance, R

I know this is an old thread, found it via searching for what 5m to 3.75m adapters there are, however I've got a practical example - I have a mission to test (via staging sequence) a mammoth engine in orbit of Ike and you can't attach anything to the bottom of the Mammoth... (To give an idea of my skill level (or, more appropriately, lack of); I only reached Duna for the first time yesterday and I used a Matt Lowne design to do it...) The only options I can see here are, keeping in mind the previous "lack of skill level" info; A. Put the mammoth at the top of the rocket, facing the wrong way, within a fairing. B. Have it at the bottom of a long central shaft with radially attached stages to get it to it's destination C. Put it in some 5m parts... I went with C, as I have a Duna satellite mission also - the rocket isn't finished yet but so far I have; At the top; a small satellite using 1.25m/1.875m parts/engines with the 100g relay antenna, encased in a 5m fairing for aero reasons Under this; a mammoth engine within a 5m structural tube Finally; Various 5m fuel tanks/engine plates to get it to Ike orbit (not finished yet) Probably an irrelevant reply now, but thought I'd chime in anyway, in case newer peeps have the same question.

Hello, A lot of contracts say test this part at this altitude with this speed and it can take hours of trial and error (for a newbie like me) to test 1 part. I want to progress in career mode but at this rate, I'll never get anywhere... so I am wondering is there an easy way to calculate what speed your ship will be doing at altitude X with certain settings? I find it incredibly frustrating to do these kind of contracts, I literally make a note of my engines/settings/stages and then what speed I was doing at what altitude, adjust, try again, fail, cry, adjust, rinse, repeat... Thanks, Ryan