maackey

The hack was through the forum software I believe (vBulletin). It happened to Xenonauts as well (guess which forum software they use!) It was religious propaganda, spreading information about Muslim religion and the like. Really counterproductive if you ask me...

MechJeb has really good information readouts (that are customizeable as well) so you can see your orbital period and match it up with other satellites/spots on the ground. For example, if you want a geostationary satellite over KSC, but are on the exact opposite side of the world in a geostationary orbit, you could burn retrograde until your orbital period is 5 hours (instead of 6) and wait for three orbits before burning prograde to geostationary orbit again (alternatively burn 3x as long so your period is 3 hours and after a single orbit you should be pretty close) But as SnappingTurtle said, orbits will have rounding errors and drift over time, so unless you edit the save file (and never revisit those satellites again) they will drift. Scott Manley has a pretty good video on editing saves. Here are the values I used in mine. The satellites are in an equitorial 1000km orbit spaced out 90 degrees apart. Alternatively I'm pretty sure Hyperedit can do the same things, but within the game. -- CommSat Alpha -- ORBIT { SMA = 1600000 ECC = 0 INC = 0 LPE = 0 LAN = 0 MNA = 0 EPH = 1234567 REF = 1 OBJ = 1 } -- CommSat Beta -- ORBIT { SMA = 1600000 ECC = 0 INC = 0 LPE = 0 LAN = 0 MNA = 3.14159265359 EPH = 1234567 REF = 1 OBJ = 1 } -- CommSat Theta -- ORBIT { SMA = 1600000 ECC = 0 INC = 0 LPE = 0 LAN = 0 MNA = 4.71238898038 EPH = 1234567 REF = 1 OBJ = 1 } -- CommSat Gamma -- ORBIT { SMA = 1600000 ECC = 0 INC = 0 LPE = 0 LAN = 0 MNA = 1.57079632679 EPH = 1234567 REF = 1 OBJ = 1 }

Are you going up to 10km and turning 45 deg to apoapsis? If you try to turn too quickly the drag on the front of the rocket (from going upwards so fast) can cause the rocket to flip out. This is better simulated in FAR but I've had it happen with stock aerodynamics as well. The solution is to try turning sooner and slower -- gradually turning till you are at about 45 degrees at ~12km.

To each their own. Pre-programming a probe to launch/fly/land on the Mun sounds really exciting to me. Anyway it sounds like you aren't using RemoteTech right, you can already use MechJeb to plan maneuvers and use RemoteTech to execute them. It just goes finicky when you try to let MechJeb fly everything on autopilot at long distances.

The descriptions are plagued with terrible grammar and punctuation, and it really detracts from the whole experience. But it seems like your original post doesn't have the same level of mistakes (well, double periods show up again..), surely this isn't intentional? Do you proof-read the descriptions at all?

I slapped together some parts and managed to do it pretty easily with the gimbals off. Mods used: FAR, Mechjeb (for info only, it doesn't fly it that well), NovaPunch, KW, and B9. I really just slapped together the first parts I could find that looked similar to what I wanted. I could easily recreate this stock :s Anyway, its 8.4 tons at the moment and still has 1km/s dV left. edit: forgot a picture of it whole! 2nd edit: now stock! All stock parts, although I'm still using FAR, but I've still got over 1000m/s dV left, so I'm pretty sure it can make it to orbit in stock as well.

They took the time to make the old VAB, SPH, Launch tower, etc. I disagree that getting rid of old assets is wasteful when it either has no purpose or has been superceded by a better model. I hope they get rid of the ASAS at some point, as I've never liked the model. Perhaps if they switch to modular/scalable tanks. That would be awesome.

edit: @rhoark: Just curious are those values stock or FAR? In stock I wouldn't need the airbrakes (although I've never actually tried re-entry with stock aerodynamics yet...), as the pod would have a terminal velocity of ~100m/s on final approach, but in FAR its nearly 400m/s without airbrakes -- that is if the pod could survive re-entry conditions in the lower atmosphere, which it cannot. I agree they are quite good, but I haven't compared them with other mods' airbrakes to really deem them "overpowered". What are they more powerful than? Parachutes? They provide an entirely different role... apples and oranges. I dislike when people use the term "overpowered" for "good" or "effective". Its a relatively minor peeve, but I see it a lot on these forums.

There are ways to reduce the sudden impact of a parachute snapping open, but those are mainly for personal parachutes/people. Typically large metal cans don't care so much about the g-forces IRL. I personally have designed my landing pods to be able to not use parachutes at all (they still carry one for backups though), which is quite difficult with both Re-entry heat and FAR, but doable, and incredibly fun . I got the idea from the SpaceX video with their reusable stuff. I clip in a fuel tank to the command pod, attach a couple radial engines, and the B9 air brakes (essential -- otherwise you'd need way too much fuel/rocket for it to really be considered a "pod") and start to burn when the ground is a couple hundred meters up and terminal velocity is under 200m/s. Also, Decoherent: there is no visible display, but there are sounds that are played when parts start to overheat, and when parts are suffering structural strain damage due to rapid deceleration (or acceleration for your srb-only powered rockets ) When I hear large creaking groans, and the g-meter is over 6g's I decrease the flaps on my airbrakes a bit during re-entry to reduce my drag until I get low enough to open them fully again for a softer landing.

I haven't tried NovaPunch for a long while (because of excess parts I'd never use), this is looking really good. It seems that all the decouplers are incredibly heavy compared to the stock ones. KW has this problem too. Any plans on making them a bit lighter?

Quick request: can you make the KSC spot start have deposits so we can easily test our designs to make sure they are working before sending them out to space? Or what configuration files would I have to edit to make that happen?

So I downloaded this just now, and have been playing around with the different fuel types. I made a test rocket (similar to the one in Manley's video) and switching only the fuel types MechJeb gave me these values: LF/OX - 3401 dv - 1.14 twr - 4.5 tons LF/LOX - 3246 dv - 1.28 twr - 4.4 tons H2/LOX - 1764 dv - 1.5 twr - 2.7 tons I haven't done very extensive testing, but first impressions -- I'm not sure why I would want to use anything but LF/OX combo. H2 gives better TWR (cause its light) but the dV is cut in half. It seems to me if I wanted a similar weight or twr I'd just take half the (LF/OX) fuel. What kind of fuel/engine/payload fractions do I need to make efficient use of the new fuel types, if that is even possible? I'm going to have to drastically change my designs for nuclear rockets as well

Protip: just ignore people who mention mechjeb. Its healthier for everybody, for or against. Anyway, back to the topic: I found it interesting that I pretty much adopted a lot of these rules from the get-go shortly after I got into orbit and landed on the Mun. I do make extensive use of mods, however, as they solve some "realistic" issues with KSP. FAR and Re-entry heat make it so I have to limit the size of my standard payloads and aerobrake gently/protected by heatshield, and Remote-tech also helps realism, as well as something else to do besides land/orbit. Kethane and ISA are good for extra activities as well -- which are infinitely helpful if you are getting bored with the standard game. Limited use of time warp is probably my toughest challenge, and I'll probably bend it a bit once I get an interplanetary mothership I'm happy with. Basically I don't use more than 10,000x timewarp, so I can easily go to the Mun and minmus, but scheduling interplanetary missions is a bit more critical. I've used it to get to the planets I've been to already, but I feel uncomfortable leaving all my synchronized satellites and Kerbals back home unattended for extreme periods of time. Its allowed me to extensively develop some pretty cool stuff, like a command pod which returns to Kerbin with no parachutes and a SSTO spaceplane shuttle which can be used for communication satellites and crew rotation. I have a series of rockets which pretty much put up everything my shuttle doesn't. They all have retro-sepratrons to de-orbit the main stage, and a command pod on the orbital stage which can de-orbit itself. I've occasionally had problems with fairings remaining in orbit, but they typically have periapses under 70km (I wish the game would delete the ones under 70 instead of whatever ridiculously low ceiling its at now, or change the path to a slowly devolving spiral, or incrementally reduce the apoapsis every time the debris passes through a periapsis less than 70). The biggest detriments of the game for me personally are the lack of missions/progression (aka stuff to do) and (lack of) performance. I burned through the mission controller mod's default mission in a single day (only used 2 lifter rocket variations and a handful of satellite/command pod configurations), and the other pack I downloaded was just a jumble of random missions which lacked direction IMO, (also bug ridden as hell). Some people really adore graphics, but for me not much is more satisfying than a buttery smooth framerate. Fortunately both of these issues will hopefully be addressed in the future, and until then I have my other go-to games to keep me company.

Thanks Yeah I've got two KAS winches on the bottom of the mining drills with attachable adapters so other, non KAS ships can still re-fuel.

Mun Gas Station -- just west of the Armstrong Memorial. Just realized now that I didn't have the fuel lines hooked up to my little lander. Pretty much the only thing not turned on and active in the shot