SquirrelMachine

True, but without mechjeb many smaller computers wouldn\'t be able to handle this thing. The mechjeb unit is the only non-stock part involved, so I would consider the craft itself stock, while the mechjeb is only to make it controllable for crappier computers, such as my laptop. =P

How does this mod handle if a ship is underwater? The balast mod makes it possible to create submarines, which would in theory also need to store zoxygene and carry it with them. However, I am guessing this only uses up ZO2 if the ship is outside atmosphere, and not underwater, which makes me sad. I was planning to make a submarine that had to routinely resurface to refill its batteries. Also, are there any deployable and retractable panels which work with the current version? I can find panels that work with krez\'s mod but not EPS.

Has there been any recent progress on this? As a player I would love to have only one kind of panel and one kind of battery fuel everything. I love zoxygene and ion engines, but so far I\'ve only found engines that don\'t use ESP, which makes me have to haul up two kinds of batteries, complicating ship design a bit. I hope development continues.

Well, the satellite relay mod can help with com delay realism, if you wish to add it in. I use it myself. I would love to actually be able to restock food, fuel, and other consumables, but sadly we can\'t yet. I\'m not against all realism, I\'m just saying I find this current compromise good enough. A feature I would like to see is the ability to add more ZO2 modules. I am working on setting up a mun habitat with zoxygene, crewtanks, and the spacedock mod. I have also included a return vehicle to evacuate my kerbals should the need arise. However, detaching this vehicle also means detaching the ZO2 system from the extra crewtanks which would remain on the surface. So while kerbals can enter the crewtanks that are left behind, I could not give them ZO2, even though they have the equipment to produce it. Have not yet tested it, but I assume this would be the case.

While I do agree that the system may be be balanced in a realistic manner, we are also talking about little green aliens here, who is to say what their zoxygene requirements are. Kerbal technology does not necessarily need to balance against humans, but kerbals. Furthermore, in reality O2 is not really used up, merely converted to CO2, if there was a system capable of reversing this conversion, and we assume the solar panels are running such a system, then the system isn\'t actually all that unrealistic. Just my personal opinion on it.

So I decided to try my hand at this and came up with my ODSK(Orbital Drop Shock Kerbal). It uses the Truss from the damned robotics pack and the airbrake mod to emulate the parachute like part on the pod. When the brakes are deployed they apply enough drag to properly orient the craft but they are definitely not enough to save the pod. Applying upward rcs thrust at about 3000m leads to a safe touchdown. Due to the mod parts and number of thrusters used it might not qualify for the challenge, but I had fun with it and thought you guys might too. Craft file attached.

2 changes I would suggest, both quite simple. 1. Change them to SASModule parts. The original cockpit has a torque value and can act as a simple SAS, so it would be logical for the empty pod to retain this functionality. This also helps with control of detached crafts, giving them a bit more stability. 2. Make it so they can be radially attached. This makes it easier for those that want to radially attached escape pods or other such things.

In my experience, you cannot control anything with crew capacity if it does not currently hold crew, even if it has mechjeb. However this is mostly based on using mechjeb pods along with crewtanks, it might be different with the other mechjeb units, though I doubt it.

Someone else made similar empty pods here:http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=16824.0. Not sure if their version would fix the issue or not. I get the feeling its simply something we have to deal with when we use these kinds of edits. I\'m not a modder or anything, I just did a simple config edit, so unfortunately I have no idea how to fix this issue. Also, keep in mind these are simply struts which can hold Kerbals, when detached they will not be controllable unless mechjeb is used.

And here are the cockpits.

Some people were asking for empty crew pods to be created for various purposes. I did a simple config edit of the parts, similar to the original unmanned crew pod mod, to create empty versions of all of the stock crew pods. While it is simple enough to do this editing on your own, I figure this makes sharing of .craft files easier. I make no guarantees about functionality or lack of bugs. In my own testing they seem to work fine, but cause Kerbals to appear very white. Seems to be simply a visual issue. May include a screenshot or two later if necessary, but they are simply stock edits, so I don\'t really think its required. Split into two parts due to upload limit, attached at bottom of this and next post. UPDATE: Noticed like 15 minutes after posting this that someone else already did it. Would take this topics down if I could figure out how, but whatever. An empty pod is an empty pod, no matter who did it. UPDATE 2:Since I\'m continuing to use these myself, I figured I\'d keep them updated in case I uploaded any .craft files that used them. Changed part type to SASModule to restore the pod\'s torque value and made them radially attachable.

Sorry, hadn\'t read the whole thing, just tried it and wanted to post my results. Still, not really complaining about mechjeb not working, its really not an issue since it handles so well without it. You\'ve done some awesome work here, keep it up. Some ship suggestions (hopefully easier that Firefly, thought it would be incredible if you managed to make it work.) Puddle jumper from Stargate X-302/F-302 from Stargate USS Daedalus from Stargate Yes...I\'m a Stargate nerd, lol.

Awesome craft, pretty detailed too. Not sure if its just me or not, but mechjeb really does not seem to like this thing in either of the available take off positions or in orbit, no idea why. However, the ship is pretty easy to fly by hand considering its size so autopilot isn\'t really needed.

First, I would like to say I haven\'t read all 6 pages of posts, so forgive me if I state anything already said. I like the model as is, as you said, its a bulky part. Something I would suggest would be making it run on electrical energy from kreuzung\'s(sorry if I misspelled) electricity plugin. Since electricity could be recharged, there could be a trade off in that it would have much greater consumption. Also, you might consider making it toggleable. I think this can be done through mechjeb, as some ion engines are toggleable that way. Overall, nice work so far, I look forward to Mk II.