pebble_garden

Let's not forget a lack of money. The US is teetering on the brink of economic collapse. However, if the US did go to the moon again, I bet it would be to put a TSA checkpoint there. Just saying. Can't have any 'terrorists' on the Moon!

I use Windows Movie Maker for my videos. It's extremely primitive compared to packages like Vegas, Premier, or After Effects, but it's free, and a lot easier and faster to use, as long as you don't need anything fancy.

I *think* if you change INC from 179.962907812783 to 0.000000000000 that might do it. I recall Scott Manley did a tutorial on editing the persistent file but I looked and couldn't find it.

If you're still close to the other ship, just use the bracket keys [ or ] to cycle between ships.

It might help to see it done, as shown in my Mun Ferry video starting at about 9:40. Basically, this is how I did it with a Munar target. 1. Set the landed ship as your target. 2. Starting about 1000km out, set up a trajectory that grazes over the target. (11:00) 3. Set up a maneuver node approx 100-200km from target that overshoots by many kilometers. (11:45) In hindsight, I should have done about twice as much overshoot as you see here. 4. When you reach the node, do the burn. (12:12) 5. Use another mid-course maneuver node to slow down further, and reduce the overshoot. The goal is to convert to a vertical descent right over the target. (12:20) 6. Once you're flying mostly vertical, make small vector offsets to steer your velocity indicator toward the direction of the target. But that's an art in itself, and takes practice. 7. Quicksave (F5) is your friend. If you flub it, hold F9 to try again. Anyway, that should get you in the vicinity, the rest is just standard landing technique.

Okay, try it now.

I was able to take off at 2/3 power and fly, but the plane feels very nose-heavy. I needed a lot of up-elevator to maintain level flight. At full power the plane gets very squirrelly, and there's a strong pitch-down as if the center of thrust was above the longitudinal axis. I'd shift some things around at the very least. Also having so much wing ahead of the center of mass is probably not helping matters.

So here's a thought. Do you have a joystick plugged into your computer? I found that even if I wasn't using the stick to fly my KSP aircraft, any stick deflection would affect the plane's control surfaces. Long shot, but hey. Or perhaps your input device (if you're using one) needs to be calibrated?

When launching in an atmosphere, drag is definitely an issue, though the problem decreases with altitude/atmospheric density. I don't know of a magic formula for finding the speed which keeps you from hitting the drag wall, but a little experimentation with different throttle settings will give you a clue. I did a video test of this problem, which you can see here. On airless worlds, I believe there's no benefit to throttling back, though. The sooner you're clear of the high gravity regions, the better. I don't know if there is any sort of efficiency loss with higher throttle settings in the engine simulation code, perhaps there is. PS Results will vary greatly, depending upon the rocket and the world you're launching from, obviously.

Unfortunately without that custom strut, I can't load the craft file. Could you save a version with only stock parts?

Personally, I find a tight ship with no unnecessary parts that efficiently performs its mission to be a thing of great beauty. Case in point: the Lunar Excursion Module from the Apollo program. There's not an ounce of extra weight on that thing. It had a pressure hull the thickness of a soft drink can, and an engine with hypergolic fuel so corrosive it could not be test fired before it was actually used in the mission. It's one of the most amazing machines ever designed by humans.

I did a lot of save-game backups while making my tutorials, and while it's a manual process, it isn't hard. First, you need to navigate to your KSP installation folder: 1. Exit KSP when you're ready to make the backup. The game saves a new persistent.sfs file on exit. 2. On a PC, right click your KSP icon and select "Open File Location". (I'm sure there's a similar option on the Mac.) 3. Go into the Saves directory and open the folder with the name game you want to back up (For example, I have one called "Station"). Then you have a couple of options: Method 1 - Organized in uniquely named subfolders: 1. Make a new folder and name it something meaningful, like "01_DockedAtStation". 2. Copy the persistent.sfs file into that folder. 3. When you want to restore it, just copy it from the subfolder and overwrite the existing persistent.sfs file. Method 2 - renamed save files: 1. Highlight the persistent.sfs file and copy it with ctrl-c. 2. Paste a new copy (ctrl-v), and name it something meaningful, like "persistent_01_dockedAtStation.sfs" 3. To restore it, delete the official "persistent.sfs" file, copy the backup, and paste it back in, then rename it to "persistent.sfs" As far as I know, quicksave.sfs files are just like persistent.sfs. You can actually rename a quicksave as a persistent file and it will work. That's saved my butt a few times when I messed up with the persistent file.

Whiskey, hmm? I approve! I'm glad I was able to demystify some of this stuff. You should have seen me trying to learn Orbiter, years ago. It took me a couple of years before the whole concept of orbital mechanics clicked for me (not being a math or physics person), so I figured I could save others the pain I went through.

They're also useful for grouping several actions when switching between modes, like going from orbital ops to docking, where you might want to 1. open the docking adapter, 2. switch on the floodlamps, 3. shut down the main engine and lock the gimbal, 4. activate the RCS system.

Hello, Hackole. You might find some useful information in a few of my tutorial videos, specifically parts 4 and 5 of the Phoenix Project. The Phoenix Project (HD) (V0.18.4) - A series of lessons in orbital rendezvous and docking, under a variety of conditions. As a playlist Part 1 - Rocket Construction Part 2 - Launch to Orbit Part 3 - Rendezvous (direct intercept from launch) Part 4 - Orbital Rendezvous Part 5 - Challenging Rendezvous (eccentric, inclined orbit) Also my Gamma To Delta video might be of use: Gamma to Delta (HD) (v0.18.4) - An orbital transfer flight from stations Gamma to Delta, orbiting at 100 and 200km respectively. Gamma To Delta And Orbital Mechanics 101 might still contain some information you haven't already figured out. Orbital Mechanics 101 (HD) (v0.18.4)

That's really clever. A great way to simplify the learning curve for docking -- take rendezvous out of the equation. Good work!

I don't know for sure, but it's a reasonable theory. One case of elevation-based exception coding I DO know of is that landing chutes now detach automatically when the command pod touches the ground. This exception was added with v0.18, I think, and broke my ongoing experimentation with rocket dragsters. (You generally need rocket dragsters to be in contact with the ground. If they're not, you're in trouble!) Took me a good long while to figure out I wasn't doing anything wrong, the chutes just wouldn't stay attached. Unfortunately there's really no good alternative to chutes for stopping a mach 1+ dragster. (sad) I tried separatrons, but that had serious weight and explodiness issues.

Excellent work, Vanamonde! I'm sure it will be a huge help for newcomers to KSP.

Hey Jester, my Flight of the Munitar video is terribly out of date. I have much better ones using v0.18 and v0.19 here. Perhaps they'll help you out. If getting to orbit is what you're after, check out the first two installments of The Phoenix Project series, or perhaps Take Me To The Mun. I generally begin my gravity turn at 10,000-15,000m, depending on how soon I can reach 200m/sec or so. But because of the Goddard Problem it's best to stay around 200m/sec until that altitude, or you waste fuel on aerodynamic drag.

Also, try attaching the part to something else, like under a fuel tank or rocket motor...just anywhere. After that, you can detach it and it'll go where you originally wanted to put it.

I've recreated my current list of tutorials, in the wake of KSP's recent server crash and loss of 6 months of posts. Ouch!

This is really excellent stuff. Great work! You've quite an eye for composition and editing, and the music's perfect.

[ and ] keys. But that only works within a certain distance. Beyond that, you'll have to visit the tracking center and choose the craft there.

I don't generally use any mods. Not because I don't like them, I just prefer to do things myself when I can. There are a couple of mods I've used: the attachable camera (which is pretty great), and a standalone on-screen protactor. But I haven't used them in some time. I also tried MechJeb and was impressed by its robustness, but I haven't felt a need to use it beyond that first experimentation. That said, there are some mods that make up for temporarily absent features, such as the docking mod(s). Also, I have to believe some sort of protractor tool will to become stock because interplanetary flight is so hard without it. Those mods are the ones I'm most likely to use. Just to be clear, I'm NOT knocking mods or anyone who uses them! I consider the mod-creators some of the cleverest people around. Oh, and the Kethane mod looks really fun, actually.

Congratulations, and thanks for the awesome photo! Gotta love low gravity worlds.