giltirn

Anyone know if this great mod works for 1.05? Or has it been supplanted by another mod?

I always named autosave on the launchpad before any complex mission; if you mess up just reload the launchpad save and you can recover it for 100% return if you need to modify the craft.

I'd also rather get more science from contracts. Please add this option to the poll for a fair result.

Yeah, this is one of the toughest challenges in the early game. I'm not sure why 1.0 rockets wobble around like wet noodles again, but its very annoying. I'm now back to covering even my basic rockets with struts just to hold them together.

I like the new aero, but Squad really need to work on the SAS and the jerkiness of the controls; getting to orbit seems like a constant fight against the controls.

I would also like to add my voice to a humble request that this great mod be updated.

I think the problem is that you don't necessarily need those parts to do the contract. Its easy enough to do surveys with surborbital rockets; you can land on the moon without legs or a ladder (use the truss pieces for legs and your jetpack to reach the hatch).

I hate the stock maneuver node system. Making small adjustments to setup an encounter is extremely difficult. With PreciseNode you can easily fine tune your orbits with nice, clear numbers rather than non-linear mouse movements. Edit: Also, I agree that Engineer is a must have. I hate trial and error, Engineer actually lets you understand what you are doing!

I think it's fine as it is currently.

One issue I find is that the gimbal controls are very jerky, and if you overturn it can be impossible to stop the rocket from falling over unless you have huge amounts of control authority (which exacerbates the jerkiness). This is made worse if you don't strut your craft to the gills to prevent it flopping around. I think the only real solution is to improve SAS to make it smoother; currently it is pretty much useless as you always seem to end up fighting it, and it always seems to overcorrect.

If it falls over still, try adding more winglets to the base in order to move the center of lift further below the center of mass. As I understand it, the further the CoL from the CoM, the more stable your rocket is, i.e. the stronger the force keeping the rocket aligned with the prograde (direction of motion) vector, but the more difficult it is to turn. With lots of fins you should gravity turn early otherwise the lift/drag forces will prevent you from turning at all.

Just a quick comment; you could use a regular fuel tank and remove the oxidizer. I expect the plane fuel tanks are lighter, but basic tanks should do the job.

We already have procedural fairings in KSP 1.0, so Squad have already broken your rule. Personally I don't think having to fit together 100 fiddly wing pieces to be a lot of fun, and that *stifles* my creativity. Quite often when iterating a spaceplane design you need to modify the wing in some way, which under the current system is a nightmare.

I agree. This is made especially frustrating as struts are locked away behind a 45-science node and you start with small tanks. I find it somewhat ridiculous that you need to stack 6 tier-2 fuel tanks (not the tiny ones but the next upgrade) in a big wobbly spaghetti rocket just to get the TWR of the most basic engine below 2! Without struts those things are almost impossible to control, especially if you use gimballed engines which cause the rocket to bend around the COM.

As a 300 hour vet I am also finding the early game very frustrating in 1.0. The big difficulty I'm having is the lack of structural reinforcement until you unlock struts. You need to build tall in the new aero, but without long tanks or struts you get rockets that flop around like wet noodles. You can also try building outwards as well to compromise between noodliness and aerodynamic profile, but then you are stuck with the crappy radial decouplers that always result in the attached stages bending inwards while under thrust and that are loose enough to allow the external stages to wobble around (especially when the engines are gimballed), making it *very* hard to control the rocket. I would say that struts should be unlocked from the beginning.

Can you provide a craft file? Mine flip end over end constantly, and are real pigs to turn; a gentle turn always ends up with an out-of-control drop towards the horizon then the ground. I just managed to reach orbit again for the second time in 6 hours. This is going to take some getting used to if there isn't a bug!

I am trying to launch this rocket: It's about the simplest thing I could come up with to launch a 5T payload. Despite having the center of lift below the center of mass, it still tips over if I turn it even slightly towards the east. Any ideas what is going wrong?

This causes my rocket to flop around like a wet noodle. Until struts become available it looks like it is virtually impossible to make something that will reach orbit with more than a pod for payload.

How is it possible to move the center of mass towards the nose when the vast majority of the mass is in the fuel, which is typically concentrated towards the bottom of the rocket?

Goslash, do you see the same issue as I if you just don't touch any of the controls other than the space bar to launch? Edit: and fly with SAS off.

I'm still convinced something is not right. Often when my fuel runs out, the rocket flips over even while continuing to move upwards. I can't imagine any aerodynamic phenomenon that will cause a rocket to flip over like that. Surely if the pointy end is forwards the air streaming around it will keep it closely aligned with the velocity vector??

I just tried launching at about 30% thrust (minimum to actually launch). I only reached 300m/s because I was spending so much more time in the denser part of the atmosphere. Although it didn't flip under thrust it didn't reach high enough speed to encounter the problem I saw before.

In my test I don't touch the controls at all, just fly straight up. Try it yourself: small nosecone, mk1 pod, FL-T200 fuel tank, and swivel engine. Don't touch anything, just hit space with the default thrust. If yours acts the same as mine, it will flip over at about 450m/s.

I have played KSP for over 300 hours and have never had as difficult a time getting things to orbit as I have today. My rockets just cannot be controlled and tend to fall over. If I build the simplest possible rocket: small nosecone - mk1 pod - small tank - swivel engine, then launch on half thrust without SAS, it flips over 180 degrees after 450m/s and ends up firing straight downwards. If I add 4 fins symmetrically placed (which look ridiculous and dwarf the entire rocket) it still flips over, at an even lower velocity of 300m/s or so! I tried deleting and redownloading the game, then starting a new sandbox save without any mods, and it still happens. What on Earth am I doing wrong?

I must say I'm pretty excited about asteroids, providing it is a full feature and not some once-off scripted mission.