Colonel_Panic

Newer, Bigger: 7R45H-7RK http://herpnderp.info/7R45H-7RK.craft

you can always make 'debris' a ship by adding a probe core to it in the VAB, so you won't lose control of it during a mission. This method is also highly useful for deorbiting stages. Just attach a probe core to the final ascent stage, and once you're in orbit, decouple it, switch to it, and retroburn to deorbit. The just switch back again and you're all set. I generally put a probe core and a clamp-o-tron jr on the final stage of all my big lifters. If they have a good amount of spare fuel at the end, you can turn them into an OFD, and just deorbit when you're done with it.

I recommend haystack to select ships in orbit. I honestly have trouble selecting the right one even if there's as few as three ships on a given orbital range. With the dozens I have now, it's nearly impossible. if your mod parts are surviving a terminal velocity impact, then your mod is broken.

No, for the simple reason of no MP. That's what gave Minecraft its viral popularity: sharing your creations with your friends on a communal server. Beyond that it was just a neat semiconductor logic simulator. Don't get me wrong, a lot of the people who really got into Minecraft will really get into KSP, but it's not going to have the playerbase of MC because it lacks the viral multiplayer aspect.

Behold my new invention: The 7R45H-CN http://herpnderp.info/7R45H-CN.craft Warranty void if used to hold trash. Trash-co assumes no liability for any damage or explosions caused by the use of this craft. May contribute to space-bourne debris.

Also see this thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/29766-video-guide-to-RCS-design-maneuvering-and-orbital-rendezvous since I uploaded my video guide the other night.

One of the dumbest things I've done was deploy an ASAT-style missile to disintegrate a defunct satellite booster in LKO. The kill vehicle and booster were each made up of around a dozen parts, and after a successful intercept, there were 23 new pieces of debris scattered around my 73km parking orbit.

Big ships can be especially hard to balance, since they often contain a lot of odd symmetry and multiple radial fuel tanks. With enough tweaking though you can devise a plan to manage your center of mass for better RCS design and docking. Consider different ways you can manage fuel flow to drain the tanks in an order that starts on the outside, top and bottom, and moves toward the center. Also consider control groups for toggleable RCS thrusters at the extremeties, in the event you need to deal with a shifted load, or a staged rendezvous module.

From personal experience, orbital trash destroyers end up producing more, smaller, harder to clean up pieces of orbital trash. It's pretty easy to make a collector though with a small rocket can, some RCS, a basket for small junk, and a 'claw' made out of lander legs to 'grab' bigger stuff. If you give it efficient enough engines, you can even 'collect' multiple pieces of debris one at a time, decelerate enough to drop them on a suborbital trajectory, then re-accelerate to return to orbit and grab another one. I've been contemplating starting a small 'fleet' of re-usable trash collectors that just hang out docked with my OFDs in case I need them, since my OFDs are conveniently dispersed to be within easy reach of LKO and all of my commonly used parking orbits.

Community thread time! share your solutions (or lack thereof). Personally I like to attach a probe core to the final stage of my lifter, so that when it separates from the payload, I can use any remaining fuel to de-orbit it. For really big lifters that might have a substantial amount of fuel left after getting a heavy payload into orbit, I will sometimes include also a clamp-o-tron jr docking port, and leave it in orbit as an OFD for my spaceplanes to leech off of until it's almost empty, before de-orbiting. When it comes to interplanetary transfer vehicles, I will sometimes stage the smaller ones and just write off the debris they generate since it'll be left in a sufficiently eccentric orbit it's unlikely to cause problems. For larger ones, I try to make them fully re-useable so they don't drop anything.

Those are all mechjeb probe modules (that I never use). They come with the MJ plugin, but I prefer to just use the radial style MJ control addon since it's easier to remove from craft to make them stock.

Note to self: don't bring it near my carrier. I'm super impressed with how well it handles, if only it wasn't so anemic about reaching orbit. Didn't have enough fuel to circularize when I got there. Might consider dropping in a pair of aerospikes instead of the little tooters it has now. I take it the radial engines are necessary for thrust stability though, yes?

Announcing the new series of SSTO craft, each capable of operating autonomously while the pilot is on EVA or transferred to another vessel. The Dart: A short-range single-seater roundabout, offering the maximum of flight stability, maneuverability and speed for rapid deployment. .craft: http://herpnderp.info/Dart%20SSTO%20II.craft The Arrow: A two-seater reconnaissance fighter capable of high atmospheric speed and medium-range exoatmospheric flight. .craft: http://herpnderp.info/Arrow%20SSTO%20II.craft The Javelin: A long-range interplanetary patrol boat, clumsy in the atmosphere but swift and agile in space. .craft: http://herpnderp.info/Javelin%20SSTO%20II.craft The old series shall remain operational, and is for the first time available to the public: The X-Wing: Highly maneuverable and unstable without advanced fly-by-wire systems, this medium-range fighter sacrifices efficiency for power and speed. .craft: http://herpnderp.info/X-Wing%20SSTO.craft Prototype X: The first of its kind, a massive interplanetary carrier frigate capable of carrying up to 4 X-Wing fighters to deploy across the system. It comes fully equipped with 6 orbital kill vehicles (for fighting the space kraken), 6 communications satellites, 4 deep space ion probes, 2 skycrane deployable rovers, 3 escape pods, and a jettisonable crew module (in case the orbital kill vehicles fail) .craft: http://herpnderp.info/Prototype%20X.craft

I kept seeing a lot of questions about this, so hopefully this clears them up. Cheers.

Well I have a few new ones... My new Arrow SSTO taking off from KSC. The Dart SSTO departing my old OFD Kilo One. The newly deployed OFD Kilo Seven, a single launch mobile depot with enough fuel to supply half my fleet, and maneuverable enough to deploy to other planets. Hermes SSTO lifter on re-entry after delivering its payload to LKO. Hermes on approach to KSC for a night landing.

And the kraken doesn't eat it? I can't keep anything in orbit that low without it mysteriously vanishing the next time I crank up the timewarp to meet a launch window.

pro mode: keep straight up until a little ways into the ascent, then just pitch your nose over slightly and peg your prograde vector for the rest of the ascent. If you don't make it to orbit, you started too soon. If you have to correct by burning radially near the end of your ascent, or have a long circularizing burn, you started too late. With a little trial and error, you'll discover the perfect time to do it... for that particular rocket.

See, I view the game as a hardcore space simulator. Space is hard. The goal of space, is to not **** up, because you're millions of miles away and can't just put it into drydock to fix it. You have to be prepared, have redundancies, and the patience to do things right the first time. ****ups during a mission will sometimes end it prematurely, and are often a sign of insufficient planning. To me if I'm playing the game right, some hours in I'm going "DON'T **** THIS UP. DON'T **** THIS UP..." and usually I don't. Now if I forget to add a parachute, or my lifter explodes during orbital maneuvers, that's my own damn fault. They do provide a restart mission button.

who's never used the quicksave/load feature? I mean where's the challenge in this game if you can just take a mulligan after blowing up your rocket and scattering the debris across the munar surface? Heck, I didn't even know there was such a feature until recently. I just assumed they wouldn't include one in this kind of game.

That's it, I'm making a rover that can drive upside-down.

I usually start at 8k for most rockets. Some faster rockets I go a bit higher to kill the drag faster so I don't waste as much fuel on drag, and slower rockets I sometimes start my turn earlier, since they're not moving fast enough for drag to be a major issue, and I want to get my lateral movement up. The real trick is completing your turn at the right point. You can save a considerable amount of fuel if you surf the upper atmosphere gaining speed until your periapsis pops out from under you. A perfect burn is one you don't have to circularize until the other side of the planet, and only takes a few m/s of delta v when you do.

Okay, this is simple once you have the hang of it, but kinda difficult to explain... First things first, get your orbit as close to the target as possible. I presume you know how to do this, and get within 1km or so. If not, and this is where you're stuck, let me know and we can back up a bit. once at the target's intersect in your orbit within 1-2km or so, you want to switch the navball to target mode if it isn't already (it should be switched automatically if you're close enough) and drop the map screen. The first thing you want to do is kill your relative velocity as much as possible. To do that, with the navball in target mode, point to the retrograde indicator (the green (X) ) and burn, keeping a close eye on your velocity indicator. You should see it approaching 0. As it gets closer to 0, kill your burn, and make finer adjustments with smaller, softer pulses of power until you're showing <1 m/s. Next, get a feel for your distance to target and how long it will take to reach it. Point toward your target vector indicator (the pink (o) ) and make a small burn to bring your speed up and close on the target. You want to adjust your vector until the prograde indicator (yellow O ) is over the target vector indicator, by overshooting the target vector indicator by a little bit, 'tugging' the prograde vector toward it. Once close enough, burn toward the target until your relative velocity is high enough to reach it in a minute or so. Once you've done that, turn around to face your retrograde indicator again, which should now be near the target retrograde indicator (pink Y ). As you get close to your target, start to slow down by burning toward your retrograde, but at the same time you want to be overshooting your retrograde a bit on the opposite side from the target retrograde indicator, 'pushing' the retrograde indicator toward the target retrograde indicator. This will fine tune your approach to intercept as you continue to decelerate and get closer, until you are right on top of it, at which point burn directly toward your retrograde indicator until your relative velocity reads about 0.2m/s or less. Congratulations, you're ready to switch to docking mode.

Hey guys, No really, locking the gimbals really did solve the problem. She flies perfectly now... well, about as perfectly as one can hope for in a gargantuan KSP spaceplane, but definitely well enough to reach SSTO reliably and assemble my payloads in orbit. The way I have the current model has the starting com a fair bit ahead of the col, since the plane burns up that front tank almost completely on takeoff. After that it levels out and I drop down to just the turbojet engines, and can hit 23km before firing up the rockets again for a final burn to orbit. It's still a bitch on re-entry though, and doesn't like to climb in thinner atmosphere, because it's heavy and doesn't have much lift... but it has enough. I have her designed to have enough dry weight in the front that emptying the front tanks doesn't affect her handling on ascent (the side tanks remain full until the rockets are fired leaving the atmosphere, and by then the front-rear weight distribution no longer matters as much), then I just refill the front tanks with the last of the liquid fuel after the re-entry burn to bring some weight back to the front for landing, and to give the jet engines something to burn.

That's sick looking.

You can repack the chutes on EVA!?!? I've been doing it wrong the whole time!