thox

also the processing in the lab takes a lot longer than all other experiments...

Anyone else where this thing is way oversized (at the same mass as the barometer and the thermometer) ? Is it meant to be that big?

Title mostly says it all, I noticed that the OX-STAT Photovoltaic Panels produced electricity even though they were in a colsed 1.25m Service Bay (positioned behind the shutters so they would be exposed when the bay was opened). Nothing more to say to that I guess. Cheers edit: Oh, and I failed to make this a [bug] Thread, because somehow that option wasn't in the dropdown for the prefixes...

I am currently experiencing this: I don't know if that is a bug or if I'm doing something wrong, but if it is a bug then can it please be fixed soon? And if it isn't can somebody explain how to do it instead? edit: The print command is only there to demonstrate that 'time + 30' is actually a number, the problem is that the plugin doesn't seem to get that.

there is one problem in the current version of kOS (0.92): whenever I use a variable in a node declaration, I get the error ‘the parameter xyz is not a number’, even though the variable contains a number. Has anyone else experienced this?

Under the current circumstances in carrer mode space stations don't make much sense for science, because an experiment done in the same orbit repeatedly will get you close to no science points very soon. That's especially a problem as the number of different experiments is limited to the number of parts capable of doing them. So what I am suggesting is adding something like "Science Material" as a resource, with one unit of it standing for one never-done-before experiment (which you get full points for), and one new (maybe 2m diameter) science laboratory which needs to be manned and in orbit to do experiments. That lab might be part of a space station, and when all the material is used no experiments could be done until new material is brought up to the station and transferred to the lab via docking ports. Of course science material should be quite heavy per unit and the experiments should only give you few points, so this method of gaining science points won't be overpowered, but it would give you the possibility of gaining constant science points (since every experiment counts with full points) if you have a station and regularly bring material up there.

I had that one situation where I ran out of fuel on the return trip and ended up on a highly inclined and extremely elliptical orbit around Kerbin. I would have just left the shuttle and Kerbal there, but it was Jeb who was in it, so that wasn't an option. After deciding to only get him back home and leave the shuttle where it was, I sent out a small rescue capsule with a probe core attached so I could get it there with the capsule empty. Matching orbits was a pain and when that was done I realized that I had forgotten RCS on the rescue ship, which resulted in a quite big EVA leap for jeb, but he got there and was ready to board when suddenly a message popped up: "you can't board a manned module" (or something like that) ... turned out I had forgotten to remove the Kerbal from the pod before launch. Well, he was some unimportant guy and I sent out the mission to rescue Jeb, which meant that he got thrown out, Jeb got in and returned and the other guy is now orbiting forever, somewhere up there

On the KSP main page the dropdown menu for community gets overlapped by the youtube video below. I just thought I should mention that (btw I'm currently using Firefox 24.0 and the problem was the same in the version before)

You've got some nice ideas in this post, and I guess you'll be pretty happy to hear that some of those are apparently already planned to be in the game at some point. The devs dropped this flowchart some time ago, it displays how they want the resource system to be (even though I don't know if this is still up-to-date). As you can see, once you've looked at it for a while (yeah, it took me a bit to figure out everything in the chart ;D ), fuel cells generating electricity and separators using electricity to make fuel and oxidizer are something the devs also want. I also assume (because there are no other kinds of rocket fuel) that the fuel in the diagram is LH2, otherwise fuel cells etc. wouldn't be possible. That would also mean that the current liquid fuel might already be LH2, so there will maybe not be a whole new system for that like you suggest, but that's just my thoughts, and who knows what we will finally get from the devs EDIT: Resource chart is not up-to-date anymore (See replies below)

Yep, usually it is possible to attach a docking port to any construction node, but it will only be able to undock from there, while we need the docking abilities that only 2 docking ports facing each other can give us. That's because the normal construction logic will let us attach a part via one node only, but for attaching a lower stage to an engine cluster we need more than that (just read the complete tutorial for a bit more detail on that ).

Nice tutorial, there's just one thing that might have to be said here: since the SAS update you don't need seperate control parts for SAS functionality, any pod (including the probe bodys) already is equipped with it. And since the Avionics Package doesn't even provide extra torque (which you also would't need for such a small probe) you can remove it completely and still have the same functions for your probe, saving weight and therefore having more delta-v for your probe.

The problem maybe is that one of the two fairing parts of every nuclear engine is pointing directly inwards, smashing directly against the other engines when ejected. Instead try pointing the cut between the fairings outwards (exactly away from the center of the rocket is best) like this: The cut can be seen as a fine line on the fairing side (I put green dots on its ends so you can easily find it). I tried this positioning and it worked for me, so it will most probably work for you as well

No it doesn't (as you might have figured out by now, idk). Since you are using decouplers to jettison the lower stage and not the docking ports (which are only part of the lower stage) there are absolutely no problems with staging getting messed up.

The KSP update 0.21 brought us multi-couplers in all varieties, giving us the ability to create engine clusters, which is the good part (we basically could do that before with cubic struts but with the new couplers it looks way better ). The bad part is that we still have the limitation that one new element in the editor can only be connected to one existing element and not multiple ones, which means that a coupler placed below a cluster (kind of a "re-coupler") to have it connected to the stage below will only connect to one of the engines, making the overall connection totally unstable. However, there is a solution that was brought up by allmhuran in this post, which I thought deserves to be made into a tutorial (with nice colorful pictures, yay ). So here we go: First things first, we have an upper stage with an engine cluster on it, but... well , placing a tri-coupler below it shows us that we can't just connect it that way with the lower stages since only one connection is made But there is a solution and it is called docking ports! Besides strut connectors and fuel lines, those are the only parts that can connect a ship to itself, and since they are in-line elements, they are perfect for us. We will want the stage to decouple later, so we first place decouplers below the engines and then add docking ports (facing downwards!) for our connection Then we attach one (!) docking port to one of those above and add our lower tri-coupler to that Having that done, the only thing left to do is add docking ports to the remaining free attachment nodes of the coupler Those are now (in the editor) in fact not connected to the ports above, but as they are in the perfect position to dock they will instantly do so when physics kick in on the launch pad. So there you go with a stable connection for an upper stage engine cluster. If that is still not stable enough for you, cubic struts and connectors will always help This solution using docking ports is the best we can have at the moment (more struts could also do the job, but that would look terrible in my opinion). The engine fairings even stay on the jettisoned stage, which is perfect for everyone who cares about the looks of his spacecraft at all times (including me ) I hope I could help you, may your ships never crash (unless you want them to, 'cause explosions are just awesome )

Ok that is what actually convinced me that it's not going to happen (at least not soon), since it shows that the devs don't want to deal with that issue and I respect that. I still don't think it would be impossible, but they have things to work on that are more important.