AviatorDSB

I enthusiastically agree.

Oops. I hadn't noticed the distance counter on the recovery screen. I like that but still think it would be cool to tweak it by biome as well. Another way to look at this might be a difficulty setting where recovery from sea, or on land beyond a given distance away is an ability to be researched and purchased to represent the cost of obtaining recovery ships and training the crews.

One suggestion I have to increase the importance of accurate landings would be to adjust the cost of recovered parts based on how far a ship lands from KSC and also adjust the cost of recovery further based on the biome they land in (Recoveries in the Polar regions and mountains cost more because of the added difficulty of collecting parts from rugged terrain). This could be a feature turned on or off for difficulty modes. Thanks!

Hello everyone, Sometime around version 0.20 I developed an unhealthy obsession with big, reusable interplanetary transports. These are massive ships with enough delta-v to go pretty much anywhere and back. Once in space they can never return to the surface but rather ferry packages from Kerbin to wherever and back. I've named all of them after the Clipper ships that used to sail the tea routes in the 1800s. Here's an example, currently I have the Clipper Houqua II speeding on it's way toward Jool. Leaving Kerbal it had a mass over 450 tons and carried seven separate mission payloads on her seven docking ports: 1) A (24 ton) habitat and extra fuel module with the Tsartier Space telescope attached. This module can also serve as a lifeboat... This is currently in that position to balance the Vall Lander on Station 7. It will return on the center position. 2) Clamp-o Jr port with a remotely flown glider packed with instrumentation. (1.8 ton) This will be used for atmospheric flights in Jool's atmosphere. 3) This is the nose of the ship, it has an (8 ton) orbital telescope which will be dropped along he way to Jool and establish a permanent orbit between Jool and Duna. 4 and 5) Identical landers for Bop and Pol (19 tons each). 6) a remote pod which will descend by parachute into Jool full of instrumentation. (1.3 ton, this counterbalances the glider with some adjustments to the crew module) 7) the (26 ton) Vall lander. Obviously this didn't all go up at once. The Clipper was launched (let's not count how many times) and used most of it's fuel getting up there. All the packages were launched and docked, these doubled as refueling and crew transfer missions. This package is speeding along with two others, disposable Laythe and Tylo Landers. All landers will land, take all science data possible and have enough delta-v to rendezvous with Houqua II in a parking orbit around Jool. The Clipper has an on-board lab for processing data. Each lander also has a detachable Materials Bay with Goo that will dock back to Houqua and can be returned to Kerbin via parachute. The remains of all the landers will be deorbited into Jool and all Kerbals returned home on the Clipper. I'll let you know if any of it works... I have pulled off a similar (but much smaller) mission to Duna with these Clippers. If anyone wants I can post a pic, I've actually been meaning to start an entire thread to see if anyone else is building similar ships. I still need a post or two before I'm allowed to post pics or my ribbons. My build style: 1. Very few mods, Engineer, Mech Jeb, the occasional telescope or science gear but stock engines, stock fuel and I have to get it up there the hard way. 2. I go for as much realism as possible and this means lots of nose cones getting jettisoned before circularizing. On the pad its got to be aerodynamic, once in orbit, form entirely follows function. 3. No intentional one way missions. 4. No Kerbal left behind (although I must admit, we didn't find much of Bill. We did put a flag on the spot on Ike where his extreme eva ended... abruptly). 5. No zombie kerbals. When I upgraded to v.23 I had to kill Bill. Sorry buddy. 6. Reverting to launch or VAB is fair in my book prior to launch but after I hit the spacebar, whatever happens counts. Most of my designs have fairly elaborate Abort sequences. If I'm not 100% confident it gets a remote launch with a Kerbal to follow in a transfer vehicle. 7. No space junk. I like my solar system tidy so everything that goes up must come down. Somewhere. Apart from permanent stations and telescopes. 8. There is no such thing as too much RCS fuel. 9. There is no such thing as too many batteries. 10. On anything remote, add at least 3 of the fixed solar panels for luck. It's a real bummer to get a probe all the way to Eeloo just to watch it sail by because Jeb forgot to extend the panels.

Hi Johnno, What program do you use to open the persistence file? Thanks

Hello, Well I just tried this again (simple ship on pad with a Receiver Unit installed) and this time it bogged down so much that it eventually crashed the program. I've located the persistence file and will try to PM it to you. There may be a new clue. This time the game bogged down noticeably worse than before and the only change that has happened is that I got all giddy about GPS constellations and launched a bunch of transmitter satellites. No other mods or anything installed. So from limited experimentation on my end it looks like my ships fly fine with a transmitter and that the game performance is affected by the Receiver but perhaps to a greater degree when there are a bunch of transmitters already in orbit. Feel free to disregard if that doesn't make sense, kind of out of my league here... One other thought, The version of MechJeb I have is 2.0.9 that adds it to all capsules and pods. Are the guys who are using Figaro successfully using a different MechJeb? @Maverick: Could you tell us what version of MechJeb you're using (if at all)? Keep the pointy part

Hello all I've just run into an issue that I think may be similar to what Maverick found. Any time I attach the GPS Reciever unit to a ship (or even simply a pod on the launch pad with no other parts at all) the game gets bogged down to less than 1 fps. This does not happen with the antennae. I'm currently on KSP v 0.21.1 and have Figaro 1.0.21.02. With my new download of the game I've only added MechJeb, Figaro and the RendezMe plugins (and I haven't even played with the last one yet). Everything else is completely stock (but obviously won't be for long...). I'm pretty useless with computers but I'd be happy to send along any information that will help. I'll need pretty detailed instructions for how to find the Persistence file (which, btw I don't even know what that is...). Thanks