18Watt

Howdy Claw! Thanks for the kind words! One thing I'd like to do is post a link to each entry next to the names. That's a bigger project than I'm ready for, just compiling a list of all entries going back 3 versions was a challenge. I've started doing that for new entries, like @MinimalMinmus's recent entry for Mun. Fengist said he didn't have any issues with me using the old badges, I'm hoping you are ok with that as well. I'm not good at artwork.. There will hopefully be a third Grand Master entry soon- Me! I finished everything except Eeloo a few months ago, and decided to hold off on Eeloo until 1.12 was available, because there is a texture update for Eeloo (and Pol). I started the drive today. If you are looking for the other Grand Master's entries, @mystifeid had most (if not all) of his entries in @rkarmark's version of Elcano, which is linked in the first post.

Celebrate 1.12 by completing a ground circumnavigation of either Pol or Eeloo. Or both. 1.12 is planned to be the last major update to KSP. Two celestial bodies received texture updates in 1.12, Pol and Eeloo. Why not take a drive around them to celebrate 10 years of KSP? The rules: For those not familiar with the Elcano challenge, you basically drive a rover or other ground-based vehicle around a planet or moon. The long way around.. More complete rules and explanations can be found on the Elcano Challenge page. For this challenge, you must have an entry accepted on the Elcano Challenge pages, circumnavigating either Pol or Eeloo. Please note that this challenge is not for the faint of heart. The challenge has been around for years, currently in it's fourth iteration. The list of players who have completed the challenge on any body is quite short. The list of players who have completed the challenge on Pol or Eeloo is much shorter. Exactly two players have completed the challenge on every CB in the stock KSP system. While the Elcano Challenge is a heritage challenge, and isn't going away, this sub-challenge is time-limited, to celebrate the release of 1.12. I'm thinking I'll accept entries for about two to three months. Entries should be posted on the Elcano Challenge pages (referenced above). I also currently manage that challenge, and will post successful entries on this challenge as well. Good luck!

Yes, vessels on KSP will only be affected by a single celestial body at any given time. Traveling from Kerbin to Mun, your vessel will either be affected by Kerbin’s gravity OR by Mun’s gravity, but never both. At the moment your vessel transitions into Mun’s sphere of influence (SOI) it no longer considers Kerbin’s gravity at all. In real life you could say that Mun itself is affected by Kerbin’s gravity, so your ship would be too. However, in KSP the orbits of Celestial Bodies are locked.

It took me a long time to find this, but it is very useful, I use it all the time now. I highly recommend using this tool.

Is there a way to do this in the stock game?

No idea why it happens, but it does. Here are a few things I’ve done to get that under control. Turn on Rigid Attachment for the boosters and the decouplers. You may need to have Advanced Tweakables enabled to see this button in the Part Action Window (PAW). Use a strut near the top and bottom of each booster. Maybe two at each end. Use Autostrut on the boosters and the decouplers. Again, I don’t remember if this requires Advanced Tweakables enabled or not. I suspect the boosters have so much thrust that when coupled with the oscillations of a moving rocket the force is enough to separate them.

As @Rhomphaia said, that warning only applies to ‘Physics Warp’. Physics Warp normally only occurs while you are in an atmosphere. While in atmosphere you are prevented from hitting ‘Normal’ warp. You enter Physics Warp by holding the left modifier key while pressing warp. Physics warp can also be induced while in space (outside of any atmosphere too. As the name suggests, during Physics Warp, the game still calculates physical effects. Yes, bad things can happen to your ship. If you are careful, it is usually fine however. I use it all the time. Here’s a few examples of bad things that can happen. While controlling an aircraft it is easy to accidentally over-control, and exceed G limits, causing parts to fall off. Using rovers on the surface makes it more likely for parts to break. In some cases, usually with rovers, parts can actually move slightly into a different position. That’s usually just annoying for small rovers, but for rovers with a lot of parts the cumulative effect can be a big problem. Even in space, using Physics Warp can cause issues with large ships. Note that using ‘Normal’ warp doesn’t really cause these problems. Normal Warp is sometimes called ‘On-Rails’ warp, because objects stay ‘on-rails’, just obeying basic orbital paths, but otherwise ignoring the effects of atmosphere or other physical considerations. During Normal warp, there is not much concern for strange things happening to your ship. One example where I use Physics Warp is while waiting for a pod to settle to the surface under parachutes. Waiting for a vessel to descend 1000 m at 2.0 m/s is painful, I usually use 4X Physics Warp for that. I do try to be at 1X warp at the moment the vessel contacts the surface though.

Here is another tip, which has worked well for me- Turn down the Spring Rate and Damping Rate on your suspension. Turn them down to zero, or as low as you can. You may need to enable advanced tweakables to do this. Do that for wheels and landing gear, anything with a spring in it. That will make your vehicle handle differently. If that works, and if needed, then slowly try docking with increased spring or damper rates.

Here’s another way to visualize approximately when to burn prograde to reach Mun- Let’s say you are in LKO (low Kerbin orbit), roughly 100 km, roughly circular. Burn prograde when Mun is about 100 degrees ahead of your position. You can ‘eyeball’ that by rotating your view to be looking ‘down’ at your orbits. (Looking ‘down’ at the North Pole of Kerbin) If you rotate the view so Mun is at 12 o-clock, your ship should be at 3 to 4 o-clock. Burn until you achieve an intercept. Note- I’m assuming you are playing in Sandbox mode, or that in Career you have upgraded your Tracking Station. If you’re playing in career and haven’t upgraded your Tracking Station, you won’t get advanced orbital information, and intercepts won’t appear.

It’s #5454. Reading the comments, it apparently was determined to be ‘not a bug’. The bug popped up in the past most often following a quick load. One workaround was to hit Alt-L twice.

Here’s another useful tip for figuring out orbital maneuvers- CHEAT! I’m absolutely serious, find the cheat menu, and activate ‘Unlimited Fuel’ or whatever it is called. Why? Because spending a thousand hours never reaching your intended orbit doesn’t really teach you anything. Turn on infinite fuel, and burn whatever it takes to achieve your desired orbit, or intercept a moon or craft. Once you achieve the orbit or rendezvous you wanted, try it again, but see if you can do it more efficiently. An hour or two buzzing around in a ship with unlimited fuel will give you a lot of insight on how to do orbital maneuvers. Good luck, we’re all counting on you!

Yes. You are getting it. Trust me, you are not the first person to bumble through orbital maneuvers. Thanks to KSP, you are not even the millionth. Some of it is not necessarily counter-intuitive, but is not always intuitive either. I assure you, you will figure it out much sooner than you suspect. I would suggest not (initially) obsessing over being 100% precise in matching your actual path to the path your Maneuver Node calculated. Get as close as you can, keeping in mind that you can correct any minor errors later- usually called a mid-course correction burn. KSP has placed a very massive moon (Mun) orbiting Kerbin, much like our own real life system. I suggest initially trying to intercept Mun’s SOI (Sphere Of Influence), because it is a relatively easy target to shoot for. You have a very wide margin of error to reach Mun. Once you have figured out KSP orbital maneuvers, you move on to smaller targets, which require more insight on your part to reach. Minmus is difficult, but not because it is slightly off-axis. It is more difficult to reach because it’s SOI is much smaller, and requires more accuracy to successfully intercept. Don’t expect extreme accuracy initially, that will come with practice. Unfortunately, starting with Maneuver Nodes may be slightly counter-productive. (You should still use them though). I say that because by using them you tend to not see the immediate effects of orbital burns. If you burn pro+grade or retro-grade, you intuitively know your orbit will either get smaller or bigger. But what about burning Normal/Anti-Normal, or Radial-In/Radial-Out? Adding those components shouldn’t affect your AP or PE, but it does. Maneuver nodes are an extremely useful tool to help you plan burns, burns that you may or may not actually make when you reach them. Eventually using maneuver nodes will be essential for you to plan burns to reach other planets. But initially you want to also think about what those planned burns are doing to your path. One of the most difficult maneuvers (for me anyway..) is Rendezvous and Docking with another craft. Don’t start with that. Start with observing the effects of burning Pro/Retro, Normal/Anti-Normal, and Radial-In/Radial-Out. Playing with maneuver nodes can help you visualize the effects, without actually burning any precious fuel. If you want to actually change your path, then you do need to burn some fuel, but the Maneuver Nodes let you see the effects before you actually burn (or waste) fuel.

My last explanation didn’t make sense, even to me. Maneuver nodes are only a prediction of where your ship would go, if you performed the burn when you reach the node. Until you actually perform the burn, your ship will continue on it’s original path. Again, apologies if I am misunderstanding your question.

I’m not sure that I fully understand your question, but I’ll give it a shot. Setting up a maneuver node lets you plan what the effects of a burn will be. However, you still need to manually complete the actual burn. You do this by firing your engines when the ship reaches the maneuver node you set up, making sure it’s pointed the correct direction For example, you are in low Kerbin orbit (~100km). (Just kidding, I mean ~100 km..) You plan a maneuver to reach Mun, so let’s say it calls for a prograde burn of about 850 m/s. When your ship reaches the maneuver node, you point your ship prograde, and burn. Eventually your actual path will very nearly match the projected path from the maneuver node. Note that the burn times calculated in a maneuver node assume all energy will be expended at a single point in time, which is of course not possible. The maneuver node assumes a burn duration of zero seconds, but in reality it may take you 10, 100, or 1,000 seconds, depending on your thrust to weight ratio. So many players bracket their burns to have roughly half the burn occur before the maneuver node, and the rest (other half) occur after passing the node. I apologize if I misunderstood your question.

Great post! @MinimalMinmus completes his second drive around Mun, hitting most, if not all, of Mun's biomes. Mun is tricky, there's enough gravity to be able to build speed, but not enough to keep you at or near the surface, which can be hard on rovers. For anyone looking for a route on Mun which maximizes the number of biomes you hit, take a look at MinimalMinmus's Elcano post.

I just re-read your post- you’re trying to induce spin (roll) on a rocket. You can also do this without mounting the engines ‘canted’ if you want. Use engines which are capable of gimbaling, and leave the gimbal free (not locked). To induce spin, use the roll controls, usually the Q and E keys. The engines will gimbal to achieve a roll moment. This does work better with multiple engines- a single engine mounted inline with the vertical axis won’t produce much of a roll moment. But it will try.. Multiple engines mounted slightly laterally from the vertical axis will do much better at producing a roll moment. I’m not sure how well KSP models gyroscopic effects however. I suspect the game will not simulate accurately the effects of a spinning rocket. But worth a try!

Try using the ‘Rotate’ tool. It looks like three intersecting rings. After selecting the Rotate tool, ‘grab’ one of the rings and drag it. Once you’ve figured that out, Hold Left-Shift as you drag the ring(s). That rotates items in 5 degree increments, instead of the standard 15 degree increments. If you need smaller angles, turn off ‘Angle-Snap’, which is an icon that normally looks like a hexagon. Clicking on the hexagon will turn it into a circle, and turns off Angle Snap. If you placed your engines with symmetry, all engines will rotate the same amount. Note that most engines are mounted on gimbals, and will rotate to produce thrust in the direction the game thinks is appropriate. So you may need to disable engine gimbaling to get the effect you are shooting for. KSP does indeed model off-axis thrust, more or less as you would expect. Disabling engine gimbaling can be done in the engine’s PAW (Part Action Window). This can be configured in the VAB (Vehicle Assembly Building), and also during flight by right-clicking on the engine. If you have action groups available, you can also set a key (action group) to toggle engine gimbaling on/off, which is handy. I suspect you are going to want to use the build tools, such as Rotate and Offset, so report back if you have trouble working (or finding..) those tools.

I believe that part is in the Making History expansion pack.

Yes, this is weird behavior. I did find another workaround, in addition to switching to Tracking Station and back. Here's another workaround that works: Do not add a decoupler to the MEM. Instead, start with the decoupler, and add the MEM to that. After building in that order, when you decouple the shroud disappears immediately, as it should. I did go back to 1.6, you are correct- it was working properly in an earlier version of the game. I can't figure out what has changed however.

I just tried it, and it appears the shroud behaves like the remnants of decouplers. I was able to make the shroud go away- eventually. After decoupling, the shroud appears to still be present. I say 'appears' because I don't think it is actually still there, it is just being rendered. After going to the Tracking Station and returning to the MEM, the shroud is now not being displayed. It's gone. Try going to the Tracking Station and then returning to your ship with the MEM, the shroud should now be gone. I do not consider that behavior correct, but that is how it appears to be working. I don't use the MEM, so I am not a good source here. If it was behaving differently (correctly) in a previous version, I wonder what changed? Edit- I just did a little more testing. While the shroud is still displayed, it's collider is still present also.

Check out this post- Apparently there are multiple nodes to attach things to on the lower side. One of them yields a shroud.

The inflatable docking port works well for exactly this. I think you will find a lot of support for adding that functionality to all docking ports though. Personally, I feel that using the inflatable one is a bit more realistic- it is also an airlock. Using a standard docking port to exit would require depressurizing the cabin every time you enter or exit. Then again, KSP is not intended to be 100% realistic, and you already have a weight penalty by adding docking ports. Anyways, the inflatable port is a current item in the stock game which can function this way.

Do you mean this one? That’s the most current version I could find, but yes it is outdated. It is still appropriate to use that one for a few reasons. The game hasn’t changed that much. The planets and moons are still in roughly the same orbits. You should take those values as a very rough estimate anyway. The DV required to reach orbit from any body, especially bodies with atmospheres, will vary greatly with your ship design, engine thrust and efficiency, and your piloting skills. Same goes for transfers between bodies. Your thrust, efficiency, and navigation skills can produce fairly large differences in the actual DV used. In general, it is almost always possible to do better than what the DV map says. Just depends how your ship is designed, and how much time you are willing to spend optimizing your route. I think the reason nobody has updated the map is because the existing one still works exactly as intended- to give you a rough idea on DV requirements..

Yes, that is acceptable, and I believe other players have used that technique with some success. Horizontal thrusters are allowed too, as long as you only use them while on the surface, not to extend air-time during jumps. With a downward-facing thruster, you can leave it on as you wish, to ‘generate artificial gravity.’ (I like that phrase..) Looking forward to seeing more entries, welcome back!

That is the case for me as well. However, for other players, it may increase the readability, possibly greatly. Thanks to @Gordon Fecyk for the suggestion for making changes to how information is presented. I suspect the stock game will not address the issue anytime soon, so it’s nice to see it is possible to change this yourself, or by using a mod.