Semmel

Wow, I am surprised. I came here to ask if heliosynchronous orbits are possible (well, precession of orbits due to ellipsoidal shape of bodies really) is possible and if you would consider it for implementation.. and it is already in by looking at your last change-log! I am blown away by that to be honest! I never really understood these orbits, they seem like wizardry. I am very much looking forwards to your mod!

Thx for the hint, no I was not aware of TestFlight. I will check it out, looks pretty good.

Dear Modding community. I would like to ask for a mod with a small, but I believe very interesting impact: Certification. The story is this: It is very easy to build rockets for contract satellites and VIP Kerbals. Thats all fine and dandy, but I would like to have some extra that makes the player think more and ultimately streamline the game more. I would like to have a mod that makes contracts of placing satellites into specific orbits only available for _certified_ launch vehicles. Likewise, VIP Kerbals should only be able to go around on Kerbal-rated launch vehicles. How to implement: * A parts sub-assembly can become a certified launch vehicle by successfully putting a certification-dummy mass into a larger than 100x100 km orbit. By doing that, the sub-assembly becomes certified and can be used to launch any contractual payload. Subsequently, the satellite that is to be launched needs to be lighter than the dummy mass and needs to attach to the same node as the dummy mass, no other changes to the rocket are permitted. * For Kerbal rating a launch vehicle, it needs to be certified and it needs to make at least 5 successive successful launches, that is, bring its payload to orbit without parts failure. * The capsule needs to fulfil the following tests: (Kerbals associated to the KSC are allowed to board during tests of course): -- Pad abort: Test a launch abort system while landed at the launch site: detach transport vehicle while landed at the launch site and land without parts failures on solid surface or water. -- Launch abort: Test a launch abort system while flying at Kerbin: above 1000 and below 3000 m, speed above 300 m/s. -- Re-entry test: Land on Kerbin after being in Kerbins Orbit. * Make contract reward for VIP much higher than it is in 1.0.2 to rebalance certification costs and make the process less grindy Impact on Gameplay: * The player will think about creating launch families. This makes games easier because certified launch vehicles are less likely to fail because they are unaltered. Fiddling with the launcher to make a unique launcher for every satellite is prohibited. * In longer games, player spends less time designing rockets and more time designing payloads to fit in available certified rockets. * New contracts might emerge to create a certified launch vehicle that is capable of bringing x kg into Kerbin orbit, to reduce certification costs

Well, carreer is not entirely balanced. I just spend 20k funds to put a satellite into a very elliptical orbit and got 250k in return. The next mission was to bring a space station into orbit for 7 kerbals with a seeing copula, a science lab and 4000 units of liquid fuel as well as 1000 units of monopropellant. This space station gave off 160k and it cost me around 150k funds. I got 16 extra science, but I dont have the kerbals to operate it (dont have an extra scientist) and hireing one is not an option, too many kerbals resqued already that were not scientists. So there is a bit of a descrepency there, but who cares? I can put virtually the same space station almost anywhere with that amount of fuel, which means I have made a design that can be reused for other contracts. I would have never done that if not for the contract and the challenge. I knew when I took the contract that it doesnt give me money and I cant afford to man it properly. That will come in the future Anyway.. Its fun, thank you squad!

Sorry for breaking your selfindulging rant on the career mode, I like it and I am playing it through. For reference, I play KSP since about 2 years, cant remember exactly. So I know my way about in the KSP system. Its just.. fun to manage science as well as money. I only do contracts and i play on hard mode (save for quick loading in case the game crashes, never reloaded once so far). I must say, its very interesting with the money aspect and the science. Because it forces decisions. As a player, it is fun because its KSP. Once I am over with that, I probably will go back to real solar system mod and play sandbox again. But sandbox in KSP vanilla is just too easy. For me, it requires the additional restrictions of having to manage money and reputation in the career mode because its just too easy otherwise. Anyway, everybody can play as he/she likes, its not necessary to call the career mode pointless or otherwise. There are probably just as many people playing career as there are playing sandbox or science.

I d it similar to Empiro but slightly differently. Usually, I launch ahead and make an efford to launch in the same inclination by timing the launch properly. Any inclination errror, I fix in orbit. Then, I put my spacecraft into a highly elliptical orbit with the apoapsis intersecting the incoming trajectory. Then hit next orbit until my spacecraft and the asteroid are at roughly the same place at spacectraft apoapsis. Once they are there, I perform a normal docking maneuver: kill velocity and then dock. That way, its possible to adjust inclination and periapsis prior to the encounter. Slightly more complex for mission planing but usually saves a lot of delta v because the docking procedure is much easier. And it allowes to divert the asteroid in case it would hit the surface.

I would just go ahead with what you have got and try to land without an inclination change. Real missions fail for a huge veriatey of reasons. Bad mission planing is usually not the most common but it happens. Just bite the bullet and go ahead, its much more fun like that (at least to me).

The problem with rovers is, that there is no where to go with them. Before Beta, there were no targets at all for rovers, the whole surface of a body was equal everywhere. Since bioms are now a thing, rovers have some uses, but not much because the distances between bioms are so great that a rover is not a good idea. And you have to micromanage the rover much much more than a hopper or a one-point lander. So the problem with rovers is not so much that they are hard to drive, the problem is that they are so useless.

Looks like they Kerbald the landing ;-)

Late December is unrealistic because ISS can not be approached by Dragon between Dec 28 and Jan 07. In this time period, the ISS is orbiting at the day-night terminator which means, that it is constantly or close to that in the sunlight. That in turn puts restrictions on the heat regulation which prevents Dragon from docking. I assume that this has to do with the orientation of the ISS, which needs to e adjusted for Dragon. If Falcon launches on January 6, it will coast for 2 days and dock at Jan 8.

When this mod gets live, there are some problems with gameplay that need solving. Assuming of course you dont want to babysit every single probe. * Since orbits are a lot more unstable, it will be hard to get probes into stable 2-body situations. Like for example L1, L2 and L3 points are instable and require active correction. * Geo/Kerbo-synchronous orbits will decay over time, there needs to be active control to keep them stable. These points are especially relevant for Remote Tech since you need a fleet of communication satellites.

Well thx anyway. It certainly is not easy to do that since orientation, shape and weight have a strong impact. Would be wonderful though if it would work! I was thinking of that already. That might also give some advantage by using an offset between the geometry center of the descend module and the center of gravity to provide lift during reentry. I am using deadly reentry. That is not an option. Anyway, the largest effect of the landing location is applied after the hot part of the reentry during the thicker part o the atmosphere. The service module would be burned up at that point anyway.

Using this mod, I have some difficulties I dont know how to solve. Its probably my inability to use it properly, so please give me a hint. I use FAR and Deadly reentry. I have a maned space probe, using the small stock Command Pod Mk1 with a heat shield underneath. I set up the descend trajectory to get down at my desired location. Than I separate from the lander from the service module and prepare for reentry. However, the drag of the heat shield with the MK1 seems to line up very badly with the estimated landing location. If the initial trajectory is very flat and I aim for KSC, the actual touch down point is at the west coast of the KSC continent, at the other side of the mountain range. That is a significant difference. What do I need to do in order to correct for that? Due to the nature of the problem, I cant control the descend after the separation with the service module. Any suggestion? Edit: Thanks for this great mod btw! It makes life much much easier. I also should add that my experience is with the second to last version, the one before 1.0.0.

As Squad stated, they are approaching feature completion. Planetary body tilts is not a major feature, so it might be on the agenda for the period after 0.9 is released. If it is not on the menue, would it be possible to ask permission for the code injection? Cheers, Semmel

Thx for the trouble anyway. Here is the promised file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/zavdst1yzvgaaxb/output_log.txt?dl=0

Before you are gearing up for 0.25 update.. I want to report one problem: I started with a fresh install of 0.24.2, installed all "minimum requirements" and all "best gameplay" mods, taking care of the red text where applicable, from the recommended mods, I use CrossFeedEnabler by NathanKell (v3.0.1) Kerbal Joint Reinforcement (v2.4.3) MechJeb by many (v2.3.1) Active Texture Management by rbray89 (v3.4) Toolbar by blizzy78 (v1.7.6) and from the supported mods, I use KW Rocketry by Winston & Kickasskyle (v2.6c) LazTek SpaceX by LazurusLuan (Launch v3.1a) I get an error stating, that some of the firespitter parts could not be loaded, but I dont know if that effects gameplay in any way. First thing I did to test everything was to load the Falcon 9 Dragon V2 rocket from LazTek, as expected the parts were scaled to fit the RSS settings. I had to re-assemble the rocket because the resize didn't place the parts at the correct location, but I got it right as far as I can tell by reattaching every single part. Rocket launches fine, but on ascend, at around 2min30 to 2m40 into the flight, the fuel tank of the first stage overheats and a second after that the nose cone as well. The Falcon9 has a liftoff TWR of 1.3 and the acceleration at the time of overheat is 2.7g. The ascend profile is such that I start pitch at roughly 80 m/s (approx. 1km height) and pretty much follow the surface prograde vector after that. At the time of overheat, the Rocket was roughly at a 45 deg angle. I forgot the velocity and height, sorry. I understand that the overheat is caused by deadly reentry, but I assume that is not supposed to happen. I probably did something wrong during install or I have to reconfigure something I am not aware of. Any ideas? Edit: I should add, I run it on Windows7 64 with the 32bit executable of KSP. Edit 2: Ill get the output log as soon as I am home. Sorry, I dont have it with me right now.

I agree, it fits best to the information we have. * Areodynamics is an existing feature, it is not going to be worked on until the game is feature complete * Multiplayer does not require lots of modeling, given SQUADs approach in the past, they would not sink tons of FTEs into modeling if it wouldnt be required. * Incraft IVA movement is a non-existing feaure. It fits crew transfer without EVA. It requires a lot of modeling. When comparing the three options, my bet would be on the incraft IVA. But when including the fourth option "none of the above", I would go for that since SQUAD is quite creative and guessing their intentions is not always successful.. Semmel

Thx for this nice video Squad! Looking forwards to contracts! Also, fellow commentators, please be reasonable. If you fillet every word thats said during such video, Squad is unlikely to release further videos in the future because they feel uncomfortable doing it. Whether Miguel said "we'll" or "will" does not change the fact that we will get contracts or how they will work eventually. Harvester said in his update definitely that procedural contracts are a thing. So don't go crazy over it ;-) *hugs for everyone* Cheers, Semmel

Ohh stupid me.. cant read any more.. forgot to see the 'r'!

Are you sure you are talking about the 1st and not the 2nd stage? I thought the first stage is lifting the rocket, seperates at some high altitude, turns around, descends and lands on the launch pad. It doesnt have a heat shield, it uses its rockets to slow down sufficiently to not burn up. But it doesnt do a full orbit. The second stage on the other hand delivers the payload to an orbit, seperates and deorbits heatshield in front and lands near the launch pad if everything goes well. At least thats the plan. SpaceX is far away from getting there. Other questions: Why is the update called "First Contact"?

Before RSS+RPL, I used to play stock KSP without RT2. Data transmission never got time accelerated. So its not a bug of RT2, its just how the game works. But I guess that can be fixed within RT2.

It does slightly. You have to change the size limit of the tanks as you progress through the tech tree, other than that, its fine. I use them. To quote my self: This is valid for ProceduralParts-0.9.14

Ok, there are several things mixed up I guess. I know that you cant return from Mars immediately. Thats why I account for the dV needed to be captured and return. I do not think that aerobreak into mars atmosphere is a good approach because you would need a heat shield which is heavier than the fuel you need. It might be possible to use the same heatshield in Mars atmosphere as you would use to reduce your speed at earth atmosphere, but that requires some very clever probe design. In case I would send a manned mission to Mars.. well, thats an entirely different can of worms. I wouldnt take Science jr or the goo cannister with me then. If you send kerbals, thats all you really do. And the third thing: Going to the outer planets.. well.. I dont know if a return mission to Jupiter or Saturn is possible. I wouldnt try it with realistic technology. Maybe with some of the crazy drives from the interstellar mod (not the FTL drive).. but thats future stuff. And finally: The game does not work well if you time accelerate over a sphere of influence change. Always reduce your acceleration to 1x if you do that. Then your orbits are not messed up. Cheers, Semmel

Thx pjf, I would like to see these changes transition to RPL

Ohh I see. I thought both receiving and transmitting antennas need the specified range. I guess, I should have read the manual. Thank you! Thx. I have it but I didnt really use it much as I didnt see the offset of the thrust from the center of mass. The offset is tiny but when applying a force on the thrusters it does matter a lot. Maybe I have to deeper into balancing. However, a vectoring range of ~0.01 degrees still seem like a bug to me. All right, on the flyby at venus, I didnt had a goo nor a science Jr and got 1600 science points due to the other instruments. Thats plenty of science already. By visiting the other bodies with the 4 standard instruments, there should be plenty of science floating around. Also I have a surface laser zapping spectrometer analyser thingy from who knows what mod, gas chromatograph and liquid chromatograph mass spectrometers from the interstellar mod. A geiger counter that looks like it comes from AIES or FASA. Plenty of opportunity for science there. To have something that HAS to come back that are not kerbals and to make the return mission in any case somewhat difficult, I proposed to use the heavy science parts that give far less science on transmission anyway. Also it makes sense to return them because all the other instruments just measure something that can be transmitted just as well. You dont need to return a thermometer or a spectrum, transmitting it is reasonable. Science jr and goo on the other hand, do not have any analysing equipment. They have just a target substance that is exposed to its environment. Returning them makes sense. As for the dV question: I plan all my missions with this chart: http://i.imgur.com/SqdzxzF.png, but I plan for 10.000 dV in vacuum for launch, but obviously use atmospheric engines and a TWR in atmosphere of 1.4 at launch. Dont know if thats the best, but it works well for me. So for a mars mission with highly elliptical orbit and return, we have 10000 dV for launch 4370 dV for going there (plus contingincy) and 1060 dV for returning (plus contingincy) with aerobreak in Earth atmosphere. That makes a dV of 16000 total, including contingency. Thats perfectly manageable, even if you have a heat shield for interplanetary return and 2 experiments each. For Venus you would need slightly less. Thats a perfect example for the need of a heavy lifter btw.. ;-)