jeancallisti

Additional info in some post I've read on the Internet: Also, these:

Yes, of course. When I wrote that the second port is inward, I meant relatively to the first port. Now THAT is cool. It's a well-known trick but I didn't think about it in this specific situation. Good to know. Maybe I was just going a few inches during my tests. Good to know! I never noticed. I didn't know the constuction system could happen to be fooled that way. Good to know, I'll be super careful. Thanks to you all for your answers! I'm sure that now. I'll have much, much less issues!!! SOLVED. EDIT: how do I set this to "SOLVED"? woops.

I've been playing KSP for over a year, and I'm quite confortable with building all sorts of rockets and space planes. I've also watched a lot of tutorials, including tutorials about docking ports. Most of the time, these tutorials tell you how to succeed at docking maneuvers, and they just tell you "don't put the docking port backwards k thx lol" But my issue is much more primitive and I just don't understand the basics of docking ports. It's probably so simple that nobody even bothers explaining. Scenario of my issues: - I put a docking port on, let's say, a fuel tank. With the docking bit outwards, as expected. - That's when the problem starts : I try to put the other half of the docking port (this time with the docking bit inwards). More often than not, this bit doesn't attach properly. It's either not centered, or sometimes it's half inside the other docking port (it's too deep or somztimes not deep enoug, not even touching it). - Then when I launch the rocket, sometimes I right-click on the docking port and it doesn't offer the option "decouple". - even when it decouples, then sometimes it's like the port is now "dead" and I can't attach it anymore (even if I "set as target" the other docking port). Long things short: I'm baffled by the little devils. I feel like the root cause is just that I'm missing the building good practice, or that the bugs in the 3D editor prevent the parts from being in the correct position. Does anyone have an extensive guide about docking ports? As I said, NOT about docking maneuvers, but about HOW to put them on a rocket? Docking ports 101.

For the record : http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/133527-Tutorial-how-to-use-the-root-part-tool?p=2180232#post2180232

The "root part" tool is the tool in the Vehicle Assembly and Planes Hangar, next to "rotate", "offset". I've been looking all over the Internet how to use it (not what it does, just how to use it), and it's always super confusing and badly explained. I've been raging for a long time because of this. One of the reasons it that there is some confusion from the forum people with the old SelectRoot mod, which was doing the same thing, but differently. People still explain how to use root part as if they were dealing with SelectRoot. So here we go. What is the root part? This is the best and simplest explanation I've found: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/104700-What-s-the-point-of-the-first-step-of-re-root-tool?p=1626941&viewfull=1#post1626941 Basically, every ship/rocket/assembly starts from a single part. That's the one part onto which you click to move the entire rocket around with the mouse. The root part tool allows you to change that part. The root part becomes very important when you start working with subassemblies, because the KSP gui goes all crazy when you try to attach that assembly to your main ship. It will try to attach it starting from the root part. So if your root part is, let's say, a docking port, then everything goes well. But if your root part is, let's say, the pod, then it might not attach the way you want it to attach. How to use the root part tool (simple solution) Many people say "just click on the new root part". FALSE. Kerbal's gui tells you to click on two parts, and it's extremy (extremely!) confusing. So I'm not going to go into the details, I'm just going to explain the simple solution: 1) click on the "root part" button 2) click on any stupid part that touches your new root part. 3) click on you new root part. 4) Nothing happened, apparently. But if you did it correctly, now if you click on the "place" button (to go back to normal edit mode), and if you click on your new root part, that's now the part that you may use to move everything around. If you screwed up, and if that click messes up with your build, never forget that you can press Ctrl+Z to cancel your last action. If someone feels like they're able to explain why you need to click on two parts, and what part should be chosen, then feel free to do so, but please do better than the people before you, who either misunderstood the question, or explained something enirely different.

After investigation I think it has to do with the fact that my rocket was flawed as early as the hangar: the game was considering that the "root" piece of the rocket was not the pod, but instead one of the fuel tanks immediately underneath. I have no idea why. Probably a bug in the construction process. I know that because when I was detaching parts in the construction hangar, it's not the pieces that would stick on and off the pod, but instead they would all (including the pod) come on and off off that specific fuel tank. Because of that, the game went loco when the rocket started separating in-flight: it didn't know anymore on what piece to focus, and it was focusing on a piece that cannot generate a "mission ended" event (the fuel tank). Therefore it would never go back to the normal "out of flight" state. Hence the symptoms I was describing above. Going back to the main menu didn't help, but completely exiting the game and restarting it solved the issue. I re-did the rocket design from scratch and it didn't happen again.

I'lm posting int he "modded game" section but I don't think it has anything to do with it. i was using the Action Groups for the first time when it happened, and maybe I don't understand what's happening. I did the following: - I built a very simple rocket with two unmanned pods, attached with a separator. - I created an action group containing : a) the decoupling, the activation of pod #1, c) the activation of pod #2 - I ran the rocket and ran the action group. The pods decoupled and the control stayed on pod #1 - I immediately recovered pod #1, then went to space center, then recovered pod #2 - Now I have a view of the space center (the same one you see when you end a mission) but cannot click on the buildings. They don't get highlighted when I hover them. Yet I can do everything else (speed up time, recover surrounding debris, etc.) I left the game and re-entred, but to no avail. Do I need to do something to put the game in "normal" state, or is it a massive bug?

Alright, here is the solution : The rocket was indeed too heavy for the tiny parachute. I was considering only speed, but I should have also considered mass. The actual solutions are : 1) Make a tiny rocket 2) With that tiny rocket, do at least one successful suborbital flight (go up and down, and land with the parachute) 3) That should unlock enough science points to unlock science step "basic rocketry" 4) Now you have decouplers. => design your rocket so that at the time you land, the parachute only has to support the weight of no more than the pod, a few gizmos (science stuff), one medium tank and one engine. The Mk-16 parachute ought to be strong enough. Note : open it at no more than 110m/s (and not 130 m/s, as opposed to what I wrote before -- even that speed is too high)

I'm trying out 0.22 and only just started playing, I'm a total newbie. I'm building a simple rocket with the pod, 2 or 3 stages of liquid fuel, and the propeller. There's an Mk-16 parachute at the top. 1) My rocket goes high up (about 25km) 2) The rocket goes down, still with everything attached (I haven't unblocked the decouplers yet, so I can't put any) 3) I fire the parachutes when I'm around 2km high, and my speed never exceeds 130m/s. Yet, the parachute stays half open for a few seconds, then breaks and gets detached. And the rocket crashes. And it always happens. I don't know what's the deal. Apparently very few people have that issue, since there are so few posts about parachutes on the forums.