Ogre

On a Jool mission, after several hours of tedious maneuvers (It was a really really underpowered mission, the Kerbin escape burn was something like 45 minutes of game time, and 1.5 hours real time, mostly MechJeb handling that.), I had my ship in Jool orbit. Time for bed. Can't save while throttled up... WHAT? I'M NOT!? Tried switching out to other ships and back, and wound up targetted on an invisible part somewhere near Kerbin. I think maybe it was part of my launch vehicle - I think I had a launch engine break off just as I was reaching orbit, and left itself in a throttled up but unable-to-be-controlled state, and then somehow remained active even after I reached Jool despite being well out of the usual active range. I'm not sure that's what it was, because I couldn't actually see the part, and once I'd gotten targetted on it, I also couldn't switch to other ships any more. I never did manage to resolve all that, wound up losing all that progress and doing it again, from launch, the next day (it worked fine that time, I made sure to test saving as soon as I got to orbit too).

Vall landing down, just Pol, Bop and home to go! More pictures in my main post, but I noticed this on the science module I took to Vall: That small cubic strut at a weird angle isn't supposed to be there. It's NOT there on the other three "identical" science modules I brought (nor on the slightly different one for Laythe). I guess some construction workers at the VAB left a piece of scaffolding behind. Because I don't think I used this part on purpose anywhere for this build, not even on the lifter.

Updates to my post (new pictures in that post): I retrieved my lander successfully and moved up to a far less nerve wracking orbit. Then I launched a new tanker design, 10 full orange tanks and 15 LV-Ns in Kerbin orbit. Sent it to meet my mission at Tylo, and topped off all the tanks. The tanker's still sitting at Tylo with some fuel, but not enough for a complete refueling. We'll see after the rest of the moons if I need to send another tanker out. I now have the mission in Laythe's SoI about to aerobrake/burn into orbit. I don't expect a lot of trouble with Laythe since I managed to keep that one extra stage intact on my lander (which is the entire reason I had so much trouble with Tylo). Though taking off from Tylo revealed it's really not balanced well at all. I have to keep the RCS on to keep it pointed the right way when all three engines are going. But I only need the one central aerospike this time, and I'll be dropping that last stage probably during or after my deorbit burn. Hopefully it'll be steady after that. Laythe tonight, more moons tomorrow, home later in the week. Edit: Laythe down, three moons to go. Pictures uploaded. Went very smoothly. As suspected, the lander is far more stable without the extra tanks. It's still not quite balanced and lists slightly, but can be kept under control without RCS now.

Oh man, this was hilarious. Landed on Tylo, got out of the lander can... and couldn't go down the ladder because my helmet was too big and got caught on a fuel line. Well, I just jumped instead, but you see where this is going, as did I! Did all my science, planted a flag, and couldn't get back up the ladder for the same reason. It's Tylo, so I can't just boost and jump up to the hatch, too much gravity. Well, after some cursing and trying to force my way through, I tried instead scrambling up one of my lander's legs up over a fuel tank and to the hatch. OMG it worked. First try I shot past the hatch but saw "[F] to grab" message as I did. Second try I managed to grab hold and get back to (relative) safety. Probably going to have to repeat that procedure on Laythe. The rest shouldn't be a problem. I decided to keep the last stage for my Laythe deorbit. That was maybe a mistake. The result of is that my lander is in a 11km AP 7km PE orbit. I used all my RCS fuel at the end just to get to that orbit too. It's dead in the water, but the command ship is en route to fetch it right now. It'll be fine... as long as there aren't any 7km mountains in the way. Gulp. I might be starting this mission over sometime soon I'm cutting it way, way closer than intended on this trip. But if I can get everything back to a safe Tylo orbit I'll be in GREAT shape.

I'm starting an attempt at this mission. I've already basically done it once, but it required a second ship to get everyone back to Kerbin's surface once I had the mission in Kerbin orbit again. So, didn't bother posting it even though I was proud of it. This one is going to be legit. I am going for Jebediah's level, without a lab module. I am bringing all the experiments home, only broadcasting crew reports and EVAs for each moon. I've launched a nearly identical version of this whole stack to test my Kerbin landing (Worked fine), and I've landed a similar lander on Tylo, and got it back to orbit. This lander has slightly more ∆V because that one just barely made it to a 16km orbit! Laythe is a worry. The lander's got parachutes. But I haven't tested it in atmosphere at all and I'm not sure the ∆V is there to both deorbit and get back. It's staged for Tylo, and if I can keep the last separable stage on it I should be just fine for Laythe, otherwise it might be iffy. I'll most likely decide that at Tylo itself depending how that landing goes. Questions: - Which game versions did you use? 0.23 - What mods did you use, if any? Computing mods only, stock parts otherwise: MechJeb (I plot most maneuvers myself, but I let it run the burns) Docking Port Alignment Protractor Kerbal Engineer Redux (only in VAB) Editor Extensions (obviously only in VAB) - How many launches was needed to start your mission from Kerbal? Single launch not counting any refueling. - How many refueling did you do during the mission, how much and where? Almost certainly one refueling. Maybe two. (Realized during my Kerbin escape burn it's almost certainly two or more, kinda forgot I built asparagus staging into the command module, but I'm not dropping stages until the return trip! Lots less ∆V than I was thinking, but I'll still be able to finish, just need to a tanker or two out there. I might have one that'll provide enough fuel for two refuelings by itself. Maybe.) - Did you bring a Living Quarter (Hitch-hiker's Storage) for the guys during the long journey? Yes. Two lander cans and one hitchhiker. Room for 6 Kerbals, but only bringing 5. - Did you bring additional stuff like satellites, rovers, etc? No. Five complete science packages (one of them special for Laythe) is it. A lander. A command module. All necessary for the mission. - Share the delta-V informations too, if you tracked it! Can't promise I'll be good about updating this, and the numbers are bit off due to my backwards mounted lander, but I started a spreadsheet: Google Docs Link

Jeb is in orbit around the Mun. I don't mean in a spaceship. I mean just him, in orbit around the Mun. Turned out the ship he landed in didn't have quite enough fuel to make it back to orbit. But it was really close, so he hopped out and used his suit's RCS to get himself into orbit. Typical Jeb. He's been there for a couple of years game time due to several interplanetary missions undertaken since he got there. Seems fine. Someday he'll get rescued.

Previously I've built a lot of elaborate multi-part vessels to go places. Now I'm going the opposite route and trying to build a SLTA (Single Launch To Anywhere) ship. The requirements are that it has a 3 kerbal command pod, has a lander that can land on any body (excluding Jool of course), has a rover with at least 3 seats, and can return all 3 kerbals to Kerbin. Landing more than once is not a requirement, and the lander does have a separate ascent stage, leaving the rest of the lander and the rover behind. So far it has only successfully made it to the Mun and back (with a whole bunch of delta-V remaining). I also made it to Duna, where I ran out of fuel on my descent stage about 100m off the ground. My command module and all 3 Kerbals survived, but the rover was flipped over and also lost its RTG (replacing with solar in the latest version) so wouldn't have had any power even if I could have righted it. As I reviewed that failure, I realized I didn't have enough fuel in the ascent stage to make it back to Duna orbit anyway, so even if I'd made it down in one piece I would've failed. The descent stage probably did have enough to touch down safely if I'd had a better landing spot, but I had to maneuver because I was coming down on a steep hill. All of that needs to be accounted for, so the lander is getting beefed up. It needed to be bigger for future missions on heavier worlds anyway.

The bug I have all the time in the latest version is where you have parts with two different types of symmetry (I guess), then drag a new part across one of those on the way to the other. Instead of attaching the way I expect, it will slip into the "wrong" kind of symmetry, where it puts all instances of the new part on the same part, rather than spreading them to all the sibling parts of the one I'm trying to add to. I can get around this by turning off symmetry, dragging the part where I want it, and only then turning symmetry back on when I've already got the new part touching the part I want to connect it to. I get this especially, but not only, when trying to build rovers, where I'll typically have a 4 or 6-way lander on top, and the rover with 2-way structural plates underneath it. If I touch one of the lander engine pods on my way to the rover plates, then the part will be mirrored several times on that one plate rather than attaching one to the back plate and one to the front plate like I'd expect. I don't know if I've made that very clear. The takeaway though is: turn symmetry off. Don't turn it back on until you have the single part where you want it. Now turn it on and it'll do what you expect.

Landed a rescue lander that needed to visit several old crash landing sites to pick up survivors. One of four landing legs broke off on the first landing. It leaned. I completed the mission anyway. Takeoffs were interesting. That wasn't the stupid part though. That was actually pretty awesome. The stupid part is I think I must have ended flight on it. I picked up everyone I meant to, got it back into Mun orbit, and went to bed. Then couldn't find it in my save the next day Five Kerbals RIP.

Alt-L locks staging. The space bar will be inactive until you press Alt-L again. (Confusingly, this persists between launches. The first time you exit a flight with staging locked, you will spend a minute or two trying to figure out why your next ship won't launch. Even though you read this. I promise.)

1. You don't need an engine to maintain orbit as long as you're out of the atmosphere. 70k is the line for that on Kerbin, so the lowest orbit you want for a station is probably about 75k. 2. Not sure what you're asking. An ASAS module, if switched on, will keep a vessel pointed in the same direction, even when you're controlling a different ship. SAS modules just provide more torque for turning. ASAS will use SAS to maintain a heading, but all the command pods also provide some amount of torque, so SAS modules are often not needed. Neither does anything to keep you in orbit. You can right click on parts to get a popup with info about them, and buttons to control them for things like engines, gear, fuel tanks. I think structural only parts may not have popups, but most of the important stuff does.

Here are the first two pieces of Mun Base Albacore successfully connected. It's my first multi-part surface base on another body, now that I finally worked out a delivery system. Each module comes with one of those big flat rovers, which drive them into place, and if all goes correctly, the docks activate as soon as I put the gear down. Then the rover decouples and backs straight out. In this case, it all worked first try! All the testing on Kerbin paid off. If I had a heavier module, I could theoretically land it without a rover and could still get it docked to one of these rovers, but that's finicky and they don't really weight that much. I did wise up on the second one and put seats on it so my Kerbals can go for joy rides now that its mission is complete. There's a Kethane processing facility ready to go next. I believe these pieces are all stock other than MechJeb (now worthless, should have put it on the descent engines so it would go away). I probably won't want to attach much more than that, unfortunately, since the framerate is already suffering. And yes, I did forget to open up the antenna now that I'm looking at it. Close enough!

I built a heavy tug using one of the new probe cores, and it won't turn at all unless I use RCS. Won't budge, even with a dozen SAS modules. If I swap the probe core for the three man pod, it turns fine. And it does work using RCS, so it's different than your problem, but still seems like a bug.

My 0.20.2 has deadlocked while I was in flight twice. 0.19 used to deadlock every couple of hours, but usually only when transitioning from the VAB to the launch pad, so I never lost any progress, just a little time restarting the app. I haven't had that problem since 0.20 was released, but I never had a deadlock in 0.20 or 0.20.1. Could be coincidence that I've gotten it twice since updating, but it doesn't feel like it.

Just completed my first successful landing in the Jool system, on Laythe. My first landing outside the Kerbin and Duna systems too. Landed harder than I'd like, but nothing broke. I should've trusted the chutes more and lit the descent stage up later than I did. Aerobraking at Jool along with the tug that got it there De-orbit burn over Laythe Safely on the ground