OrbitsR4Sissies

Not generally. The very first Mars rover, Sojourner, was much like its flying technology demonstrator counterpart, Ingenuity, in that both required their lander counterpart for Earth communications. But the MERs, Curiosity and Perseverance have capacity for direct communications, if needed, and use an antenna similar in shape and size (but not in function) to the narrow-band ISRO resource scanner part (but not spinning). What I'm asking for would be 1/4 the size or so as on the real spacecraft. And yes, a direct reliable connection from Kerbin to Duna required at least 2 RA-2s or DTS-M1s (four would be better). This makes a small MER-style rover VERY bulky. Small rovers are impossible beyond Duna, even with a maxed Tracking Center, without an orbiter relay. I don't want to even talk about how an 88-88 is butt-ugly sticking out of the back of the RoveMate probe for a standalone Jool moon mission. It's simply not realistic. Still way too bulky. Let's use stock settings with CommNet enabled. If I wanted to emulate the DragonFly Titan rotorcraft (I've made many for Mars, too), which will not have a relay, I MUST use an 88-88. Nothing else will reach. Obviously, this makes flight awkward, ugly and impossible. DragonFly will be the size of a Perseverance rover.

I loved sending independent probes for study (think Cassini or Galileo). But one thing that annoyed the heck out of me as someone that used CommSat was the size of high-gain non-relay antenna for small probes. Going Voyager, Cassini or Galileo was no problem with the RA-15 and 88-88, which looked like their real-world counterparts. But similarly powered use-anywhere non-relay antenna as used on Martian rovers like the Mars Exploration Rovers and the big boy/girls Curiosity and Perseverance? Nowhere to be found. I'd prefer not to send orbiters everywhere for relays, nor would I want an 88-88 hanging off my small rover like an ugly tumor. Don't mind if there were three types that are good only for local, half-system or all-system connectivity (if the Tracking Station will still exist for deep-space upgrading) and have graduating tech tree costs. Just so we 'd have a part about 1/4 the size as the RA-2, something that can sit comfortably atop the early probe cores, not be so large, or not cause a rover to tip--those would be great. Appreciate your hard work and looking forward to the game.

Thanks. This is my first game install that includes a butt-ton of graphics mods, which might be affecting things. Rather than bothering the devs, I'll work on a re-install somehow.

Having problems using any of the Windows x64 updaters. On selecting the same KSP install folder used for the last update, I get "Please select a valid Kerbal Space Program folder." If necessary I'll make a full reinstall but I have very little free disk space to make that happen. Anyone see this?

I am seeing a LOT of this with 1.12 craft which have worked just fine prior to 1.10. I do tend to use autostrut (heaviest or grandparent) but consistently. The parts that appear to be sagging are batteries (the larger 1000ecs), the Oscar tanks (placed in a line, horizontal to ground, parallel to craft body) and the Science Jr, when used as part of a body of an aircraft or rover. Not even Rigid Attachment helps here. The behavior occurs BEFORE the craft is ever used, as it loads onto the runway, horizontally. I have not seen this occur on vertical craft (rockets). The issue almost seems as if the craft has struck the surface, bending upward, even if the part can never bend. Attempts to reinforce these by clipping fixed length items through them, such as a girder, has limited success. I don't tend to clip parts. But even when I do not use autostrut, the behavior continues. When adding individual strut parts to reinforce these items, they sometimes stay in place. Mods are mostly graphic now, only one non-stock part mod used (Bon Voyage). Others include Scatterer, AVP, EVE, Waypoint Manager and Waterfall. I had just added the visual mods today, long long before these issues began. I'm also seeing craft in space, while docked, become increasingly bendy on acceleration, forcing the use of manual struts to ward that off. I tend to use autostrut on them but never Rigid, which glues the ports permanently on loading. Any advice or confirmation of issues with bending craft?

Lovely. As others have noted, nicely or not, would love to see Tylo, Pol and Eeloo get the texture revamp, too, as well as more reasons to go there to explore. Most players dislike Tylo simply because there's little reason to explore it, aside from the high resources needed to land and return. Perhaps a few new easter eggs or special resource/surface features/tech item for these most remote areas?

Looking very forward to building my own Ariane 5ish launch vehicle. I've practiced long on making multiple gravity assists from Eve to Moho and can get a vehicle into orbit with under 600dV. To be able to put two relays into orbit like this will be fun.

Thanks for the update! I didn't realize there were additional docs within the mod installation folder. I'll look at those to see if there may be more clarification about the mod that I haven't understood. I've worked around the issue for now by setting 1 meal/day and, if absolutely necessary, cheating a craft filled with snacks to refill a station or other vehicle.

I love this mod, but I have a problem in the lab’s snack processor. It doesn’t seem to to generating any snacks. Even when there is only one Kerbal aboard, 1500 ore available, settings set to 1 snack/day and both soil recycling (which appears to be working) and processing is on, the snack generation shows zero. My only other special mod is DangIt, which works fine. KAC, SciFiVE, and a few others are also been working without complaints. Any suggestions as to why there’s no creation?

I love rovers. But Eve is an enigma. It'll break your rovers unless heavily fortified. And then, the rover is heavier, slower and doesn't get far on the planet, especially since much of it has Explodium seas and lakes. While I'd love to go the full "Dragonfly" route as NASA and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab will do in going to Titan, I realized that Eve is really much like Titan, atmospherically. The thick atmosphere would make flight work fine, provided you could power your propeller rotors. Come "Breaking Ground," the option for electric rotors came. I haven't worked out a Dragonfly option but for Eve, here's my next best thing: The Hummingbird. A simple Twin-Boar booster put a nuclear-powered cruise stage with the flying rover into Eve orbit. The dV was perfect; nothing was wasted. Entry and stability are great. On separation from the heat shield, avoiding recontact was a challenge. I later updated the craft with Separatons to push the heat shield away. Hummingbird takes off with as little speed as 40 m/s. Flies great. An RTG was added but it's not really required; solar power was sufficient. The rover arm is a nice touch but is also optional. Used the medium one because it is a challenge to get the vehicle C/M and CoL right with the colossal OP-E. You can enjoy it yourself from KerbalX.

It's the 47th anniversary of the last crewed lunar landing mission of the Apollo program. Ben Feist (KSP player himself, now a NASA historian and also involved with the 2019 Apollo 11 documentary film), created the Apollo 17 in Real Time website four years ago. This site, during the anniversary, syncs to real time coverage of the entire mission as it progressed years ago. Every second from 1 minute to launch to splashdown is covered. Video and audio is time-synced. All available photos are there. Visit https://apollo17.org/ to enjoy. This summer, an Apollo 11 in Real Time version was created, for the mission's 50th anniversary, that you can enjoy. And little birdies are telling me that an Apollo 13 version is in the works.

Scott Manley's video reflects my sentiments. I posted an answer to a Quora question, which reflected more on ISRO's struggles to engage the public. Their issue is that, unlike NASA and ESA but more like the former Soviet Union, ISRO melds its military and scientific objectives. ISRO does not have to freely give information as NASA is mandated. So there seems to be a "saving face" issue going on. A comment in my question from an Indian citizen or national also provides some perspective on why ISRO is reluctant to discuss matters as freely. The sad part is that ISRO is really a great force of people. They put an orbiter around Mars on their first try. No one has their success record there.

I would agree here, noting that you're replying in the WS thread as I did. The maker of WorldStabilizer notes that his mod isn't tested with 1.8 as he hadn't purchased it at the time of my report. Similar to the OP, I was trying to use Deployed Science on Duna in 1.8.1. I got "Cannot deploy part when not on a planet" each time I tried to place a DS item. A check in the Console revealed that WS was trying, as designed, to allow the items to settle. But WS appears to work too well because the parts have their own settling scheme. Zeno's Paradox as a result; the parts continually travel but never reach the surface. Removing WS and all was well with the DS deployment.

Hey Whale. Got a potential bug for you that anyone should be able to replicate. It may be that World Stabilizer works too well when it comes to Deployed Science parts. I was deploying the various experiments for Duna, starting with solar arrays with the current version in place. Using 1.8.1 with both DLCs (of course) in the Western Canyon. I have a Kerbal place a module. It appears to settle to the surface, slowly, before I see the game error "Can't deploy part when it is not on a planet." Tried placing the modules on different inclines but the result was the same. During one return to the landing site after diddling with other spacecraft, the communications dish module continually killed itself by submerging and colliding with the surface. I was only able to save it by immediately going into time warp to let the game help itself. That was a one-time occurrence and happened only with the comm part. Took a look at the logs as seen from the Cheats menu and it notes how World Stabilizer was easing the parts down to settle, and settle and settle, with that error message appearing as part of the text. So I saved, exited the game, and then removed WS and then returned to the game--hoping that my crew rover would not bounce itself into the surface. All the Deployed Science placed itself happily without complaint this time, no matter the slope. I returned WS and prepared to take my crew home from their hab home to the lander, where the experiments were, separated about 2.2 km. As my rover passed by the experiments, they were making their game noise and appeared to be on the surface and operating. But then "Can't deploy part when it is not on a planet" appeared once I was close enough to some of the modules. I think the experiments will work OK now that the lander is gone and I'm out of physics range, but I will check and post what I see for you to consider later.

You can visit this thread, which has a workaround that should get your versions going. The thread does not note if mods are installed on their installs. Be mindful that, when KSP stalls on loading, it's almost certainly because of mod incompatibility. Remove them ALL, or make a fresh installation, test, and then find and remove any offending mods if needed.

That's something we don't see in KSP, even in realism mods. It's called plume recirculation, and it was normal.

And that Little Joe wasn’t meant to destruct.

With DPAI's toolbar icon literally coming and going randomly in 1.8.1, I wanted to move to Hullcam since I've gotten a bead now on orbital maneuvering at close range, thanks to lots of DPAI work. I'm using MacOS and have installed the entire mod manually and believe ModuleManager is in place. But there doesn't seem to be a general tutorial/readme on how to use the various cameras beyond activating one with "-" and "+". Some quick questions: Which cameras activate the docking port view with the alignment crosshairs? How is the docking range/range rate display brought up in docking mode? Where should the cameras be placed for docking mode? How is docking mode activated? I've placed a camera just on the exterior of a pod, next to the docking port, then attempted a rendezvous with a selected docking target. No joy. I just see the exterior view exactly where the camera is placed.

The question seemed to be asking about engines that aren’t the peculiar tank+engine clusters that KSP offers. So my comparison is more appropriate, at least in appearance. The Twin Boar itself isn’t a single engine in appearance. That said, the Twin-Boar’s shape and two engine appearance is more comparable to the SM-65 Atlas rocket (with no center sustainer engine or half-stage). The power of the Twin Boar is more comparable with the Rhino, and both of those are superior against a single Mastodon or Mainsail, if I am reading the wiki correctly.

How have I lived without this mod for so long, and with so many rovers in many game saves? I've avoided the mod primarily because I love driving across the vistas of various worlds. With 1.8's retextures, more so than ever. But there are days when I need to get things done, and driving for hours is a bit taxing. So, with Waypoint Manager also installed, I'm looking forward to many adventures in exploring every meter of most words. Thanks for keeping this mod up and running!

The first two Saturn V flights were unmanned. For those who'd like a little more history: The first Saturn V launch, Apollo 4, was an "all-up" test. Rather than making a launch test only of the S-I-C first stage, then the S-I-C with the S-II second stage, NASA, falling beyond in their development schedule to get a lunar landing mission in before 1970, decided to launch the whole damn thing at once. If that's not Kerbal before KSP existed, I don't know what is. They checked their staging, though. Apollo 4 proved out the Saturn V's general performance and confirmed the Command/Service Module's performance, from its SPS engine to the heat shield. The next test launch, Apollo 6, was a bit more dramatic. NASA engineers checked their staging, but didn't use enough struts. The first stage engines vibrated and oscillated so wildly that parts of the fairing atop the third stage, where the Lunar Module would eventually be housed, shook pieces off in-flight, leaving holes you could see from ground cameras. Then the second stage's engines also did the POGO dance, causing the computer to shut down one engine and, because of a mis-wiring, shutting down a second engine, leaving the vehicle to limp into orbit with just three J-2 engines. The third stage engine didn't restart either, forcing an alternate test mission that proved out the Saturn V enough for its third flight, the historic circumlunar manned mission of Apollo 8.

The Mainsail is KSP's functional (but not cosmetic) counterpart to the Rocketdyne F-1 engine, which powered the Saturn V moon rocket. With Making History's introduction, the Kerbodyne KE-1 "Mastodon" is slightly less powerful than the Mainsail but has better ISP, and is cosmetically most like the F-1.

Especially with today's NG-12 Cygnus launch, I couldn't get the word "Nominal" out my head.

KSP 1.8 alone adds most of the new boosters. But you'll need the Making History DLC to get an additional booster. If this isn't your question, try rephrasing and clarifying for us, or check the Technical Support thread if you think the issue may be a bug. (Update: Poster's question now appears in Technical Support, so never mind.)

Taught my older iMac 2013 with nVidia new tricks with a upgrade to 16GB RAM and a 1TB SSD. And then updated to 1.8.1 (skipped 1.8). Oh, my. I may never leave the Mun. The textures, the speed. Nice work, Squad. I know bug catching is a pain, but I’m happy to wait until I can enjoy stuff like this.