RoboRay

I flight-tested Tacitus, a science-surveying plane to be shipped to Laythe... - STOL performance is pretty good... stall speed with flaps down is about 30 m/sec. The wings (from SXT) fold up for shipping. The storage bin behind the cockpit holds most of the surveying equipment. Pretty good visibility from the pilot's seat. There are a few more pictures of the plane in flight at https://imgur.com/a/10Tyin3 And, of course, my inspiration for the design was Tacit Blue:

Next week is always next week!

Very nice. Assuming that Squad doesn't ever fix the problem officially, it might be worth writing a Module Manager patch to substitute your fixed versions for the originals (rather than overwriting them in the SquadExpansion folder) and just releasing them as a mod unofficial patch. Maybe bundle in the various CoM fixes and other corrections with them.

Only the base is 1.25 m. The spherical shape expanding above the base does physically fit three kerbals in it. The Mk2 Passenger Cabin has only a slightly larger internal volume and fits four. They also lack subsystems (reaction wheels and RCS) and have less resource storage than other comparable pods. The balance comes from the tech tree as the higher-capacity versions come later. You will notice that engines also get better, not just bigger, as you work through the tech tree.

AFAIK, the only fix is to replace the part model... same as with the vertically misaligned front and rear thruster quads on the MEM. There's no fixing incorrect thrust origins after-the-fact through config-file edits. If Squad doesn't replace the model, a modder could make a replacement model to substitute for Squad's model... like the way Ven's Stock Revamp replaces the stock parts with new models.

I loved those parts. You could put a decent-sized 1.25m payload with radial attached parts in the cargo bay and it actually fit. I would love to see somebody bring them back as "Mk.2+" or Mk.2 Heavy" or something. I have zero modelling skill, unfortunately, and they would require new models because the Mk.2 form factor changed a little with the Porkjet revamp.

There was a mod IVA for the original Mk3 Cockpit...

First Mun landing... in 2012. My favorite, though, has to be my first interplanetary flyby when we first got other planets...

The SPS motor for the service module was actually designed to land a larger version of the CSM on the Moon, before the Lunar Orbit Rendezvous approach with a separate lander replaced the original Direct Ascent plan. It was seriously overpowered for the role it ended up playing, but it was already designed and tested so they didn't mess with it. It was certainly designed with lunar surface conditions in mind.

The attachment node was off-center... that's probably all they fixed. The real problem is that the thrust vector is also off-center. Well, I would argue that the real real problem is that the Wolfhound Isp is game-breaking high, but that's another discussion.

The main problem with the MEM RCS is that the part's Center of Mass is at the base, rather than up in between the RCS thruster quads where it is supposed to be. This is with only a Docking Port Jr. and Spark engine attached, which seems to be the intended typical usage for ascending from the Mun. A secondary problem is that the thruster quads themselves are attached asymmetrically, on both the vertical and longitudinal axes... which makes it effectively impossible to perfectly balance the craft without fixing the thruster positions in the part model. I did some experimenting with offsetting the MEM part center of mass and found a reasonable compromise with torque around all three translation axes in the hundredths of a kN. The values I settled on are: CoMOffset = 0, 0.6998, 0.029 (the order of axes being lateral, vertical, then longitudinal) The torque from horizontal translation is reduced to about 4% of that caused by the default CoM position. Horizontal thrust torque could be reduced to near zero, but that unfortunately leaves the pitch torque caused from fore/aft thrust untouched and it becomes very noticeable when horizontal thrust problems are fixed. You can download here a ModuleManager script that applies these values to (mostly) fix the MEM RCS balance. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be balanced. In the real-world Apollo LM ascent module, the thrusters were balanced along all axes in case the LM needed to perform the docking with the CSM. While the CSM was intended to perform the docking (and did on all flown missions), the LM was specifically design to also have this capability as a backup in case of a system failure or other emergency aboard the CSM. The balanced thrusters can still rotate the craft just fine, as also seen on the Apollo CSM. Not balancing them in this part simply makes it less useful and, since the default CoM position is simply the model origin, it looks very much like this was just one more oversight in the MH part config files. Hopefully, Squad will at least move the CoM... which addresses most of the problem. Fixing it completely would also require a change to the part model, which I do not expect.

It's awful, but it's also a different form-factor and I will still use it in some cases where I need to fit a command pod into a 2.5 m cylindrical stack. I would suggest not hiding stock or other mod parts by default. If users really want them gone, they can use the Janitor's Closet to make that happen.

The only player-created terrain-feature name I've seen pretty much nobody dispute is Booster Bay for the body of water east of KSC that everyone... drops... boosters... in. I also like Cape Shame for the peninsula across Booster Bay that so many failed SSTO attempts come down to after their suborbital flight.

My God... It's full of stars!

Thank you so much for this lightweight texture replacer. All I want to change is the skybox, and every other mod that can do that is overkill.

I've been using a joystick with KSP for about 4 years. What kind of issues are you having?

Love it! Here's what I came up with for a standard top-end sub-assembly on Mk 1 and Mk 2 capsules... Decoupling the docking portion takes the drogues away with it when I deploy the main parachute.

If we want to get pedantic, Xenon is just a reaction mass, not a fuel. They would all be considered propellants, of course. I did not propose Wolfhound-style "mystical" Isp ranges for a Monoprop engine. I suggested 300'ish.

I'm aware... but when we only have two flavors of fuel, LF/O and Monoprop, and LF/O is used by every other engine, using Monoprop seems to be a way to distinguish this engine from the rest. It would also offer a Poodle-alternative that doesn't simply remove any reason for using the Poodle.

I'm tempted to just mod the Wolfhound to burn Monoprop and cut the Isp to 300'ish. The game really needs a monoprop engine larger than the dinky little Puff, and the part that is supposed to represent the hypergolic Apollo SPS seems like the perfect candidate.

Well, yeah, but anything other than the Spark is overkill unless you're adding more fuel tanks... and if you're doing that, you're adding room for more RCS nozzles to balance with the built-in ones.

Even without the giant-wheeled rocket contraption underneath, your plane basically doesn't have wings... that's a problem.

Your image link is broken, but I unbroke it... Mmmm, yeah... The runway is not the problem.

I made a BPC (Boost Protective Cover) from an inverted fairing above the docking port... Could be prettier, but it works.

I used slightly different values, also accounting for the longitudinal axis offset of the thruster quads to minimize uncommanded pitch while thrusting foreward/aft. CoMOffset = 0, 0.6998, 0.029 The quads are actually assymetrically attached along two different axes (vertical and longitudinal), so pretty much any chosen COM offset values are going to be a compromise. Compensating for the fore/aft thrust issue makes the horizontal thrust issues worse (but still far better than the stock placement). The only real fix is to replace the part model with one having symmetrical thrusters. Then the CoM could be fine-tuned to perfection. And I'm sure that ain't happening.