Helmetman

I Don't have pics at hand. But what kind of massive rover? Does it have wing parts? Aerodynamic surfaces (wings or control surfaces) will affect the rocket on ascent if not put in a fairing. Generally rovers are long with little cubic characteristics. You could thus strap it vertically against the side of a rocket. Then you rotate the engine on the ascent stage to center the thrust (center of thrust :pink arrow in VAB: with the CoM (center of mass) 'which is the yellow ball in the VAB/SPH' This will make it like a spaceshuttle. Basically your cargo is on one side and the rocket on the other. If the Center of thrust (CoT) is through the CoM it will lift up vertically. Does it flip due to the aerodynamics of the rover on one side? Either fair it or angle the engine more to any of either side to compensate for the drag or put a counteracting fin (wing piece) on the other side to compensate for it. Another idea is to put your cargo at the bottom of your rocket. This means you have to use radial engines on the outerside of the center stage and have most if not all rocket nozzles radially attached on the outer boosters or outer sides. This way you can tow your rover to orbit and beyond. This will still have the aerodynamic drag involved but will overcome the instability having the rover at the top, as you would classically expect. Sorry for not having any pics. I picked that part up but I don't have any of this nature, sorry... I hope you kinda figure what I was on to. GL with this by the way.

That is probably what KSP tourism is based upon. Facepalm... Hey, I'm with the OP, I hate it to. Change it!!!! Meanwhile I've been bothered by this career thing since it came to be. The early career is definitely the greatest nuisance. Once past that and I upgraded my mission control center I just try to group all the different tourists. If one contract has suborbotial with a few orbital requests I just launch the two missions separately. One suborbital rocket carrying all the suborbital tourists of 2 or more contracts in one launch. Then the other rocket carrying the buggers that want to go to orbit. 2 rocket = 2 missions completed. But yeah, it still sucks, I'm with you.

Not to qualified to say much anything about this. Ignore, hit, sue, debunk, scold demonize me if I'm wrong. But Earth has a lot more internal geological processes then the moon. The earth is constantly reshaping itself in it's interior while the moon does so much less (next to nothing in comparison) I'm not sure how/if this affects orbits and in which manner. I'm also not sure how this information is even usefull concerning our current satellite network and/or other things that may be affected by it. But as the users said above, this is true for moon and Earth, and consequently any planet out there with varying differences.

@Just Jim Cool thing I mean, cool cabin, I ment great looking ship cabin. That said, what mod is the cabin from? That will look cool on one of my ships. All I can say is that I beat 60+ m/s over terrain by absorbing front and rear loads. I did this by moving one pair of front wheels slightly back compared to the other pair of wheels to the front. Only by 1 or up to 3 pixels in the VAB/SPH. This causes one pair to absorb the hit against a slope first and then the 2nd pair. This prevents tires popping when facing slopes that look like walls. The same on the rear when hitting your tail hard after coming down a slope. In that case by moving one pair of wheels a bit upwards so the terrain collision is better absorbed. Although I did use a pair of medium landing gear on the rear to help with that. Downforce also playes a keyrole here. @Azimech That thing is eye candy, especially the rear lights, love it! @dvp I'm still perfecting the thing. But as said, I'll put it on KerbalX. Be prepared to be surprised. It was quite a lot of fiddling with parts and other parameters. I can see why it may get any disbelief.

Has anybody once build a stock jet rover that could do a cruise speed of 90 meter per second (325 kp/h or 200mph) using a autopilot (mechjeb) traversing 300 kilometers (action radius) without damaging itself when hitting hills as it goes? Basically I build a rover that could leave itself unattended as described and find itself one hour later 300km away from the KSC without damage at said speeds going over terrain. I think this is quite a extraordinary feet. Not necessarily in terms of top speed, but in terms of survivability/durability at greater surface speeds. I haven't seend such a design yet, not sure if it's that spectacular, I wanna know. It was quite the build getting the suspension right on the ruggedized wheels without it doing weird stuff on terrain bumps. I haven't seen such a vehicle as of yet so I'm wondering... I made such a thing and I'll put it on KerbalX once it's fine tuned.in the next few days. Check mission timer... It has run on full power reaching speeds of 85-95 m/s continuously. No damage whatsoever, and it didn't pop a tire after travelling 300 kilometers at said speed. It even beats moderate mountains without popping wheels. No not hills, I said mountains. It was a hell to finetune all the settings. I wanted a newb proof terrestrial rover to quikly traverse great distances with a very good mileage over 200 miles. I know one could build a 20 m/s rover and use 4x timewarp. It's not about that though, more the design achievement at that. I hope everyone likes it. Anyone interested in such a thing? Worth putting it on KerbalX?

@Palaceviking It's not fully stock, you will need module manager. But it can edit stock files, so if that's mod territory for you? I don't know, kind off... Wanna go there? Go to opera, chrome, Mozilla, Safari, edge, IE or whatever browser you use. Go to browser settings in whatever respective program and use the "find", "Find page", "Find or press" or "Search" option and type in "Allow Deflating Inflatable Heat Shield" to search for that line of text in the thread page posted above. "Reveal hidden contents" on the only line found within that thread. Therein lies your answer Spricigo mentioned about. GL

@Deddly Ah ok! I've always been a few days to late to the actual release date. Guess that's why I didn't know. @JJ2478Point still applies, your not missing on great things as the user above confirms. Backing up your folders in Steam is one of those probable forgetful things when having it on Steam. Point is, you'll have your other founded complaints having the game on Steam just as you have right now. You have to pay for a playstation game just as you have to pay for a xbox game (sony or Microsoft) just as you have the choice between gog, ksp or steam. You already decided some time ago. Each version is with it's own drawbacks. At best you can buy the specific version having the right set of additional services you'd like most. Beyond that, there isn't much else to choose from.

I made a few iterations of SpaceX styles recoverable rockets myself. Like Bewing says, there is no way without OP'ing any of both stages. I generally make a TSTO recoverable SpaceX style rocket by having decent TWR on the 2nd stage. With the first stage it's not about efficiency but by launching that into a suborbital trajectory where the 2nd stage has a greater amount of seconds to Apoapsis then the time it takes to land the 1st stage once passing 70km. The 2nd stage still needs to be under Apo or there at during the time you switch vessels once you landed the 1st stage. So you'll have to sacrifice efficiency for that. Basically, the best thing one could do is make the most efficient 1st stage concerning a predefined payload for the 2nd stage that is able to land as quikly as possible so you'll have spare seconds to Apoapsis on the 2nd stage. Usually I aim for 80km on the 1st stage so I have time to accelerate the 2nd stage to greater apo (hundred(s) km'(s) before the 1st stage drops below 70km at which time I switch to it. However, how this is executed depends per player. So if your goal is a foolproof method of a 2 stage recoverable rocket it kinda depends on how foolproof the end user is. The end user that picks this up from KerbalX must be educated on the physics rules as to actually know how to fly a recoverable rocket in KSP. People aren't educated at that by default since it's a ludicrous system and you'll only know it if you've played the game for some time. So good luck building a fool proof recoverable space X style rocket for newbs, they still need to know the physics range rules. At best you can properly verify them to this fact in the description on KerbalX so they don't bury their hands in the sand while launching it.

Sometimes loading a specific mod module manager says to patch (edit) it and then it hangs specifying the name of the mod it hangs on during loading. (It's the name of the mod shown where it hangs on) during the loading procedure. This usually tells me that mod is the culprit or a combination of that mod caused by another. I would try to google known culprits in combination with said mod or read the last few pages of the mod page (concerning the mod it hangs upon) to see if there are any listed incompabilities. Or reference the OT of the release mod page for further reference.

Hydrogen Peroxide is used for bleaching and sometimes found in other cosmetics. Maybe in high concentrations one will have a problem but it is actually prescribed for such things and people don't die from it so go figure. I even used a diluted dose of it to kill bacteria (user above it explains me) from the cut of my pulled wisdom tooth. It got blue and greeny at the cut so I needed to disinfect with Hydrogen Peroxide. A whole flask went down, .................. I'm still here. Don't expect to get any hiccup or burp when trying a dilated flask from the chemist without you falling on the floor. This is normal. Just try to avoid the pure stuff.

@swjr-swis So there are actual barn haters huh? Shack people? Or are these the city people? .... Or the I'm going to debunk all the cute and innocent things people? Lame thing to actually hate. Don't get me wrong. I know the word "hate" herein is a bit of a amplification of actuality. But to seriously hate it. Atleast one can be neutral to it if it bores them. If this doesn't get through, maybe for a mod...?

Know that it's isn't anybodys fault. Steam is a company under it's own name selling their respective copies for their own profit. It's basically a marketing deal. You wan't ksp from Squad right from their website, fine! Go ahead. Now you want it from Steam, I'm sorry bro, hey, it's not me making this up. You want the Steam edition, you'll have to pay Steam for it. They don't give a rats bottom if you've already paid it directly from Squad. They have a offer that makes them money, and your only going to get the offer unless you pay them. This makes me ask, who are you going to get angry upon? Steam or Squad? That said however, I also don't like how this works. You essentially paid for a product. Now you need to pay a 2nd time for one, two or three specific services Steam adds as a topping? I can see your frustration. This is the market for you. At best and worst (whatever angle your view it from imho) you should only pay a buck or two for the steam services that the toppings provide. Seems fair I bet. Maybe illitage towards a process that proves your the owner of a specific product that deserves any and all additiions, you might win (unlikely) I wish you all the best and hope you can satisfy yourself concerning the circumstances. Do know that you can always still re-download the whole package from the KSP site and be a little later to the updates compared to the rest. I don't think you'll fall behind much though. Most people who get the newest steam updates are mostly testing all the new services ksp has to offer. I also don't have the game on Steam so I satisfy myself by watching the newest videos or update change logs of the newer version to educate myself on all the changes other friendly people will narrate for me on youtube.

I've told myself that one before aplenty, good luck with it though

I have always been able to fiddle with the manoeuvre nodes from kerbin orbit to get any encounter. Maybe your mouse sensitivity is off or you don't have cool hands to fine adjust using the maneuver icons? If your really unable to get a encounter from kerbin easily you can use the precise node mod... This will let you fine adjust maneuver node parameters by 2 decimals places. I'm also not qualified to tell you much about the mathematics concerning oberth transfers. If you haven't looked it up yet, it basically tells you that burning as close to the periapsis is more efficient then burning anywhere higher then your pe. Doing your encounter burn outside Kerbins SOI will thus lose some Delta-V efficiency. In kerbins case this means that doing your transfer burn as close to 70km is the most efficient escape burn. Also know that getting anywhere close that is from 1-10 million meters from your target (i.e. Eve) is a very close encounter. Doing a correction burn outside the Kerbins SOI usually involves 1-5 m/s Delta-V. So it's not paramount to actually hit the target absolutely close, as long as you have a encounter the correction burn is more then forgivable. Also note that if you've set a maneuver node in map mode you can use the "tab" key on your keyboard to switch between planets. If your target is Eve you can switch to Eve, pan your camera to Kerbin where the maneuver node is, then fine adjust and keep a close look at Eve and eyeball your vessels orbit line as your adjust the nodes. Using Precise node at this point is very recommended if your aiming for a atmospheric entry from Kerbin orbit. It's hard to get this exactly right in any case, so you'll usually need a correction burn later on.

Building rockets inside a barn huh... C00L How many people here do this at home? Generally I appreciate most suggestions involving more ground scenery, this is such a thing.

♫ Dreams will survive ♫ 2 possibilities here... This will be picked up for a new mod. Your a seer... unlikely but who knows

I'm not that much of a fan of ion engines because of their burn time also. But when used only for the return mission it's probably doable concerning the burning times. By that time you probably only have a command pod(s) for the return home. In that case you'll have acceptable TWR for 4x physics timewarp. Unless your "mothership" has the weight of a actual mothership. But I suspect a return ship (mothership) isn't all that heavy even with life support added. It gives you plenty of Delta-V to go directly back to Kerbin. But as is said, you'd need to decelerate when entering kerbin SOI.

@Jeremiah I understand your frustration, nothing is going to change that much, not me or anyone else. Granted, this is bad business. Realistically speaking I can tell you what to expect. Based on norms concerning the gaming genre we're playing here. KSP, considering it's building complexity and other areas of complexity makes it a underachieving game when played on consoles. Considering the mechanics, modability and config editable content the game KSP is definitely a PC game. Sure it's on consoles, great But it is a pc game. I definitely support the need for a console update, or better yet, update-(s) for all I care. But don't expect miracles. Your rant is understandable. And you deserve every attention for it. Things are as they are though. KSP is a heavily modifieable and configurable PC game. I can only suggest everyone out there to play it on PC and not on a console. And all I can do to you is recommend the same thing. That while I sincerely agree with your rant. This wasn't the short term answer you deserve, or any console player by the way. But at best your being heard and answered for, but at worst completely ignored by Squad. And the latter definitely shouldn't happen by the way. Squad just tries to sell as many copies they can. If people want to play on console, then that helps them in that regard. But it is a typical pc game. So if you want your worries over now buy it on PC. I know that isn't really helping and not the answer your looking for, but it's the best thing. Also know that if you get your way and this update does come by you'll have more things to complain about as you go. Things probably manageable or moddable if you had the game on PC.

@MagzimumThe ISS under said acceleration was a hypothesis. I didn't mention this so I understand your confusion. It was only to illustrate the fundamental similarities of real world docking ports and ksp ones. They are not made to handle stress. On that bases I only intend to say that you shouldn't expect miracles using docking ports as connections in KSP. That said, the allowable stresses in ksp are already OP, but balanced and acceptable and nothing worth changing though. And if it is designs you need I would just watch some interesting playthroughs on youtube. Many guys assemble stuff and put heavy engines at it and make it work without disassembling itself. That's probably the best thing you can do to learn yourself and get some design inspiration. Sometimes it's just better to see things then people trying to explain things to you. Maybe I'll link such a playthrough if I find a proper channel. Haven't got any on hand though that would be a good example. Maybe I'll find something later on.

@MagzimumWhat's also very important to know is whether you push or tow the ship? Depending on how modules are decoupled on the actual mothership you could eyeball whether it's better for towing or pushing. Multiple docking ports means more connections so less wobble. So I would push the craft in that case rather then towing it. If the craft has few connections it will wobble a lot when pushed, but not when towed (with engines on the front) Another way to reduce wobble is to make sure that each modules has it's own engine, and that it has the same TWR as all the other individual modules. This makes sure that all the modules are propelled under the same acceleration, and things won't be ripping of so easily. Also understand that docking ports in real life aren't meant for heavy stresses. I'm sure your KSP styled mother ship will have a TWR of 0.30 to 1+, right? I wouldn't put the ISS under such acceleration and expect all the compartments to stay intact without leaking atmosphere or other chemicals and stuff. The fact that you can accelerate KSP docked modules at 'decent' acceleration (i.e. TWR 0.30) is already quite awesome and unrealistic. If you accelerate much faster then that up to 1 G or more and you have multiple docked modules, then you can expect some unintended things to happen, all the way up to RUD. I also want you to post a picture of the mothership in Orbit as you've tried assembling it earlier on. Seeing how your being thrusted and how the docking port connections are laid out could give any of us some clues.

The Procedural tank mod is originally a joint invention for RO by several modders to meet the endgoals of Realism overhaul. PP is most notably mixed with the real fuels mod and the freedom of procedurally resizing fits neatly in allowing you to build specific over sized tanks for use in RO. You wouldn't want to assemble a tank with many parts in RO only to find out you'd have to redesign the whole rocket. RO is more about realism and skill rather then artistry by building something with bricks/parts. RO is also pretty taxing on your nerves. You want to have the engineering challenge reduced to save time and space for you to learn upon realism overhaul. Not tax you further with unnecessarily difficult design challenges using fixed sized parts. Hence why PP is recommended for it and oftenly used in RSS/RO. The building method of many select parts for stock vessels is actually a fun concept on it's own. It's what gives KSP it's unique character, among other things also ofcourse. Using PP is optional. But PP in stock will definitely render the other stock parts nearly useless. So that would ruin a universal design challenge we currently have. It's the combination of limited parts and their physics values that creates the contest and the ultimate division of player build concepts. With some PP parts thrown in many more yokels would be able to go farther where record breakers have gone before. And that is a bit unfair IMHO. I also think the scenery *cough* landscape of stock KSP has already been laid out pretty much. I'm still not sure how people still think things like this will get through, people are determined I guess. In a nutshell is a nut, unless you've eaten it or gave it to a squirrel Squad isn't interested in this because their whole lego brick design forbids it. So it will always be a mod. A mod made for specific things...... thus ... There's this grandeur design challenge by building something with limited available bricks/parts. This creates a gameplay norm to which challenges are based, and what makes them more challenging. Throw some PP parts in stock and building something to your size has become absolutely easy and most of any other stock design challenges.

No! Science gathering already is a grind. More biomes gives you more reason to grind? Question to the OP: Does this game need more grinding in "career" mode? What do you want to gain from this? I had a savegame I tossed from a older version due to agony and had 40% fund and science penalty because I got fed up launching tourists and doing temperature readings, flybys and such stuff. You just gave us a recommendation to expand that grind in other areas. This is not a very popular thing to recommend because of that reason. Rather a whole career makeover would suffice IMHO. Eventually biomes are just a imaginative line. Adding more of them is adding more imaginative locations that do nothing but give you a new name. How is this helpful?

@Snark I have to admit, I'm biased not to use landing gear as a solution because I find it very OP. So it is possible, okay, got it! I know the word "possible" is in the OT, and that there draws the line, sorry for misreading it. I understand your point, now understand mine. I'm not the kind of guy who wants to give advice on a very few loophole solutions this game has like using landing gear. And if the question is to land on "drag" alone, I interpret it as "drag" alone. Also the question is landing using drag only without parachutes. So my assumption is that the OP means something that can decelerate below crash damage tolerant speeds without parachutes. Rather then using this magic part that can absorb 300 kp/h in a instant of impact with every part and crew member surviving. If that's the solution you'd hardly need drag. Just a little to stay below a critical impact speeds for the gear to survive. In which case it's not even a main topic of drag anymore. Since landing gear absorption is far from braking by aero drag only. Maybe I shouldn't have spoken as I did in my previous reply considering the Bias I mentioned. The straight answer to use landing gear is the straightest answer, period. But the method I find wrong. I know stuff on a series of landing gear can survive much harder loads then 40m/s. The number is just a example of my personally added up average of impact crashes while surviving using landing gears, although I never intended to test the max loads tbh. If 100m/s is a achievable max then using it for braking makes this solution far away from landing using drag alone. It's landing using drag and space alien suspension and impact absorption techniques. If you allow that in your answer then sure, it's a good answer. Just not within my ballpark of methods I would use. And I think it's me answering through my own facts and "experience" what best can be done. My apologies towards the statement where I said it can't be done. I have to admit that was a little silly. I will not make such assumptions on the bias of my own implemented limitations and assume the person in front of me wants all options on the table. As for the context of this thread. It's landing by drag alone. Landing gear absorbing up to 100m/s is out of the context of air drag deceleration. So I'm not sure how I didn't make a point there. The only thing you could convince me is that you context it differently. But you'll have to explain yourself on that one because this is how I put it into context. Not sure how it can be viewed many other ways, but I like to be told in a decent manner if I'm hellishly wrong.

You can land with *"drag" *cough* *"Lift" *cough *"Aerodynamics" only. It's called a airplane. Getting to a full stop through aerodynamic braking however is not possible. Maybe this is what you wanted to know? Maybe you wanted to do it with a capsule? You can't. There's a phase in between surface touchdown and "Lift" and this phase is called stalling. So unless it has no way to stop otherwise by rolling on gear your gonna crash after the stalling phase. Maybe you can build a custom fixed parachute or heatshield made from wing parts. If you use enough wing parts and shape it conically so that it is guided you may put some small cargo in and let it airdrop. The bottom parts probably will still break. Things tend to fall not much slower then 15-20 m/s as a wing piece. So adding cargo (that which your trying to land) will make it sink even faster. And average crash tolerances are half the speeds I just mentioned. So unless you want to sacrifice bottoms parts or put landing gear on the bottom your not going to use a method differently then airplane land or parachuting. This will make the design unnecessarily complicated and lifting custom build airfoil on a rocket creates quite a lot of drag. So from a whole gameplay/career, science and funds efficiency point of view your better of landing things the old fashioned way. EDIT: What Snark said about the landing gear. I do find it a bit out of context how they survive enormous impact loads. You really can land things at 40 m/s using gears as shock absorbers. But using gears as absorbers basically means you can land anything. Probably not in the case of a capsule hitting the ground at 300m/s, but who knows, one should try...

@invision lol'd @T.C. Can you tell me the difference between the old and the new UELA? As in being specific to which end is unacceptable? I'm doubtful they changed it that much since it's usually a copycat in most general terms to other UELA's.