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I'm missing a ship. I know this because (in addition to remembering building and launching it, etc.) I have an alarm clock entry for a maneuver node for it, but "switch to" doesn't do anything. Weird. Ok, go to the tracking station to look for it, and... I can't find it. Maybe KSP/The Kraken swallowed it for tribute, but barring that, is there log/debug data I can find that would let me know if I accidentally forgot to do something with it and it crashed into something or was otherwise destroyed? Maybe I set the alarm on a maneuver node that I didn't notice was on the far side of an encounter or something? No idea how far back this would have happened though, in game time, it was on a year+ run to Duna... Thanks!

I'm finding EVA construction to be near useless. Maybe there are tricks that aren't documented or hinted at anywhere, but if so I haven't stumbled across them yet. Major problem: anytime I try to do any construction, sooner or later (almost always sooner) I move something a wrong way or across a bad spot or something, and suddenly everything explodes without warning. So, now I don't dare try to use it on anything I care at all about. Not useful. (I do have KJR installed, if that could be a factor.) Minor problem: the engineer's effective range is too short. This becomes the sort of challenge that is 100% hassle, 0% fun. Would still use for emergencies, except for the point above. Good idea. Needs a lot of fixing and adjustment before it's usable though. Is this just me?

I've noticed that KSP still uses significant CPU (and more significant GPU) resources even when the game is paused. Anyone know what it is doing while it should be more or less doing nothing? Just curious, mostly. Astronomer's Visual Pack is probably the most GPU-intensive mod, but it shouldn't have anything to do when the paused; other than that I have MechJeb and some parts and textures mods (Near Future, ReStock+), and System Heat.

Thanks! Sorry, my bad, I was flipping through windows too fast to catch the mouseover...

Quick clarification question - what are the configurable action values? For example in the configuration, "SOI Alarm Action: 1" -- I'm assuming "1" means "warp goes to zero and display notification". What are the other possible values? For me I'm thinking "pause" rather than "drop out of warp" might work better, because I do a lot with MechJeb, and what happens often is that since MJ is executing the node, the alarm will drop the warp to 1x but then MJ will immediately ramp it back up again. Not a huge problem, but they are definitely having a little tiff.

I find the docking port approach to be a serious PITA for anchoring bases (just as it is for assembling larger bases) because lining everything up is such a hassle. So far the approach that seems the most workable to me is to use the extendible crew tube that comes with Stockalike Station Parts (I think?) -- it's essentially an extendible klaw that looks like a jetway, and you can use it to hook parts together with much more flexibility. You still have to be pretty close, but you don't have to align nearly as closely. So with that, just build a pillar on top of a ground anchor, then extend the crew tube to it, and you're anchored. Stock game -- not convinced they're worth the trouble, but maybe.

Thanks for the video link. That helps, but it still seems like it's not very flexible at all; you have to get your spacing dialed in pretty precisely before it will do you any good. Maybe I can hack together something more general with klaws and pistons though (I do have Breaking Ground). Thanks!

It sounds like you got too far away from the container? You can only work with things that are pretty close, I think... 10 meters-ish, maybe?

What are the options for using the new ground anchor? At first I thought this might be a good way to stop my bases/ships from jumping into the air whenever physics engages on a low gravity world like Gilly, but I'm not sure. It looks like they are meant to be attached to the ground, then you build something on top of it, then you put a docking port on that, and now finally you attach [whatever] to the anchor by docking with what you just built? Honestly that sounds like too much of a pain to be any fun, given how much of a complete hassle it is to line up docking ports for ground bases in the first place. Can I build a ground anchor and then just attach a strut between it and something nearby? Guess I should experiment, but suggestions welcome. Relatedly, can I now use EVA construction to connect base add-ons with struts? Hmmm.

As one data point, I'm running -Next with KSP 1.11.1 with no issues so far. I have heard that there may be some problems with it and EVA construction, but I haven't run into them yet (but I've done very little EVA construction).

Thanks all -- this makes sense. It's too bad there isn't a hybrid setting, "use RCS for translation only, use reaction wheels for rotation."

I think it just means that you have to build and launch all the parts after you accept the contract. You can assemble in orbit or on the surface, but -- for example -- if you happen to already have a ship waiting around in orbit that would fit the bill for all or part of it, you can't use that.

Admittedly I've done this by hand (using the visual approach with maneuver nodes that Snark described) a few times, but now I just use MechJeb to calculate a porkchop plot for me. If you go that route, a couple of things to be aware of... If your burn has a staging change it in, or if it's very long because your thrust is low, the result may not be all that accurate and you may need to do it twice. (I usually wait until I'm in the sun's SoI and then do an additional Hohmann transfer maneuver from there.) If you have some reason to want to choose a less optimal departure window than the ideal (you need to leave sooner for some reason, for example), you'll need to take more fuel than might be immediately obvious. Not only will you need more dV as shown in MJ's calculation, but you'll need even more than that because you'll enter the SOI of your target moving quite a bit faster relative to it than you would have in the optimal window. So you'll need extra dV to slow down and capture as well.

Mostly just curious here -- when I use MechJeb's landing guidance with "use RCS for small adjustments" checked, and also sometimes with the docking autopilot, it looks like it's firing a lot more of the RCS thrusters than it actually would need to in order to translate in the desired direction. Sometimes it looks like it's firing essentially all of them, though not all at the same thrust. Sometimes it appears to cycle through them all, fairly rapidly. What's MechJeb doing here? I usually assume that it's going to be better at this stuff than I would be doing it by hand, but it's use of RCS often at least appears to be fairly inexplicable. Is MechJeb just bad at this, or do I not appreciate it enough? :-)

So, I packed up some surface-based deployed science pieces into a cargo unit and sent them off to Minmus, only to discover that my EVA kerbal's inventory can't hold both a jetpack and a single surface-based power unit. So how am I supposed to unpack this stuff? Do I really have to make sure I have ladders all the way from the ground to the cargo space so I can climb back and forth a lot to haul things down one at a time, and I can't use the jetpack to go back and forth? If so, I have to say that's an arbitrary, meaningless, and frustrating difficulty element that adds no fun at all to the game... just sayin'....