Razgriz1

FWIW, the default thrust curve is the most realistic one, where it ramps down around Max Q and then back up.

12.9 doesn't exist

Might be asking about splitting the rudders and the vertical stabilizer into separate parts so that they can work with FAR?

To be honest, PEGAS isn't actually particularly well suited for stock KSP, as it can't do a coast. Stock rockets generally have fairly high TWR, which when combined with the Earth-like atmospheric density and the relatively low orbital velocity, often makes a coast to apoapsis the best ascent path. The RP-1 wiki actually has a section on MechJeb's PVG, which is a similar algorithm to PEGAS (though it can incorporate a coast) and it explains a bit why the rocket it doing what it is: https://github.com/KSP-RO/RP-0/wiki/TroubleshootingMechJebPVG#my-rocket-is-burning-down-not-a-problem You could probably fudge it a little bit by either setting a pretty low g-limiter in PEGAS, or actually set the throttle limiter on the engine to a lower value, just don't forget to tell PEGAS what the maximum limited throttle is.

You probably can (you can do a lot of things with delegates in PEGAS) but I'm not sure you'd really want to do that. The open-loop guidance portion, a.k.a. before "active guidance" is mostly to get you high enough in the atmosphere so that the closed-loop portion can take over. Your open-loop portion should be over fairly quickly before you'd really want to control your time-to-apogee. You'd probably be better off setting up a pitch program instead of a simple pitch angle. You can make a okayish ascent profile without too much effort.

The IRL shuttle isn't designed to be used for anything other than low earth orbit, and this one is modeled fairly realistically. It does not contain any ablator. I doubt this shuttle can survive any interplanetary reentry speeds, though I will caveat that I have never personally tried.

I would assume so, pretty much every SRB in RO simulates thrust tail-off.

The RSS/RO group is responsible for the RSS configs for this, not Benjee. As for the "Thrust is off" errors, that's due to the fact that the RSS configs simulate the tail-off in thrust that occurs toward the end of booster burn, but MechJeb doesn't know about that. It assumes solid boosters burn at 100% thrust all the time. As for what you could do about it, you can force MechJeb to wait to start the PVG until after the boosters separate ("PVG after stage X", or something similar) The PVG settings in the user manual are also designed for stock-ish sized systems, and the stock shuttle. RSS will likely require different settings to work correctly.

I believe that it's Skyhawk Science System.

If you look at the mission time, you start the engines at 1:35, and MJ lifts off at 1:44. This, as you mentioned, is due to MJ waiting for the engines to reach 99% rated thrust before liftoff. BDB does simulate engine spool-up time, and this is pretty darn consistent with the actual F-1 engines. On a Saturn V launch, the engine ignition command was given at t-10 seconds before liftoff.

It stands for "Human Landing System", which is the name of the NASA program that is in charge of selecting the lander portion of the Artemis Program.

Programatically determining the staging for your rocket via kOS is not a trivial problem, and relies on various assumptions about how a user sets up staging. It also pretty much entirely breaks down in non-traditional staging cases like the booster skirt jettison for the Atlas rocket, which isn't reflected in the stock dV readout at all. You also can't assume any other parameters such as engine ullage requirements or hotstaging requirements (useful in RSS/RO) and so having the user define their vehicle parameters is a much cleaner way to do this.

Yes this allows you to simulate n-body physics

The split rudder is the primary thing that makes this not play nicely with FAR. If that was split into 3 parts (vertical stabilizer and two rudders) then it should be possible to get it working with FAR just in general.

Realism Overhaul does actually have SOCK configs, and you can manually define the wing parameters to get around the issue with node-attached wings. The rudder is not configurable with FAR because it cannot handle multiple control surfaces in a single part. All that being said, I've never flown it in RSS/RO so I can't comment on how good the configs actually are. The Space Shuttle System Expanded mod is supposed to be a lot better for RSS/RO.

No, not really. There are a few parts (especially the split rudder) that can't be configured correctly in FAR. That being said, it will fly, but the aerodynamics aren't remotely right.

One suggestion I would make is to increase the EC capacity of the BDB probes (or really all of the probes tbh), especially the early battery powered probes. Kerbalism removes the hibernation mode, and the early battery powered probes just don't have enough to be very useful. The early Pioneer probes only have enough EC for about 6 hours, which is not enough to reach the Mun, their intended target. In the past, when I was messing with my own Kerbalism configs for BDB, I just multiplied the EC capacity by 6 and that seemed to give them a pretty decent battery life without lasting too long.

Ooh I was just about to start setting up a very primitive version of this with a plugin. Beat me to it It would be great to be able to get this sort of information for FAR as well, though I am currently unaware of any way to export data like this from FAR. Booots has previously stated that FAR integration into Kerbal Wind Tunnel is on the roadmap, but last I saw is that there were some roadblocks that have made FAR integration more difficult than initially assumed. I do know that you can output live flight data using FAR, though that obviously doesn't allow for 3-dimensional interpolation so it's use would be somewhat limited. The FAR analysis tool in the VAB is able to produce the same kinds of sweeps that you'd need, but I am unaware of any way to export the data, other than manually setting up sweeps and recording some data points from them to then build a very coarse map by hand.

It changes the control point to be more aligned with the thrust vector from the SSME's and the OMS. It is useful for controlling the vehicle after booster separation up until reentry.

RO has support for a lot of BDB already built in. It does not have any of the Saturn rework stuff yet since that's still in development right now.

Honestly, I'm amazed that you're still working on and improving this thing. Thank you so much for your effort!

But... I just started learning...

I believe it's in KSP Features on the main Principia window. There should be an option somewhere there to "Select Target" which after clicking that should let you click on a vessel or planet/moon to set it as a target as you would in stock.

You have to click the "Show on navball" button on the Principia Flight Plan window. That will put a maneuver marker on your navball for you to follow.