Finding info in Demo; other questions

[sevenperforce]

Playing Demo and I have a few telemetry/control questions:

1. Is there any way to determine the total mass of your craft at any given time during flight?
2. Is there any way to determine how far you are from the ground at any given time? I'm tired of crashing at 120 meters above sea level.
3. Is there any way to reset stages mid-flight, so that I can turn off my engines, throttle all the way up, and then press space to turn them all on at full throttle?

[HebaruSan]

1. Map screen, click the 'i' icon on the right side of the screen to bring up info about the craft.
2. Press 'c' or click the IVA icon on your pilot to go to IVA mode, there's a radar altimeter in there somewhere. Not available for unmanned craft. Press 'c' to go back to regular mode.
3. You should be able to drag the icons around in the staging list, but I think that only works for engines that haven't been activated yet. However, press 'x' and 'z' to set throttle to 0% and 100% respectively without fiddling with staging.

[Gojira1000]

50 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

Playing Demo and I have a few telemetry/control questions:

1. Is there any way to determine the total mass of your craft at any given time during flight?
2. Is there any way to determine how far you are from the ground at any given time? I'm tired of crashing at 120 meters above sea level.
3. Is there any way to reset stages mid-flight, so that I can turn off my engines, throttle all the way up, and then press space to turn them all on at full throttle?

1. Kerbal Engineer Redux (or MechJeb) will let you know mass at launch

2. KER or MechJeb

3. Well, sorta, use action groups and slave the desired engines to a toggle setting

[HebaruSan]

19 minutes ago, Gojira1000 said:

1. Kerbal Engineer Redux (or MechJeb) will let you know mass at launch

2. KER or MechJeb

From what I can tell from a bit of searching, mods cannot be used in the demo, so this question has an implicit "stock only" twist.

[sevenperforce]

1 hour ago, HebaruSan said:

1. Map screen, click the 'i' icon on the right side of the screen to bring up info about the craft.
2. Press 'c' or click the IVA icon on your pilot to go to IVA mode, there's a radar altimeter in there somewhere. Not available for unmanned craft. Press 'c' to go back to regular mode.
3. You should be able to drag the icons around in the staging list, but I think that only works for engines that haven't been activated yet. However, press 'x' and 'z' to set throttle to 0% and 100% respectively without fiddling with staging.

Thanks, that's exactly what I needed to know!

[Gojira1000]

3 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

From what I can tell from a bit of searching, mods cannot be used in the demo, so this question has an implicit "stock only" twist.

Whoops, reading comprehension fail on my part

[sevenperforce]

4 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

1. (snip)
2. Press 'c' or click the IVA icon on your pilot to go to IVA mode, there's a radar altimeter in there somewhere. Not available for unmanned craft. Press 'c' to go back to regular mode.

I see the radar altimeter but it is analog and not clear enough to read accurately. 

[HebaruSan]

23 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

I see the radar altimeter but it is analog and not clear enough to read accurately. 

Yeah; if you have your heart set on doing precisely timed suicide burns, mods will be extremely helpful if not essential.

[sevenperforce]

22 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

Yeah; if you have your heart set on doing precisely timed suicide burns, mods will be extremely helpful if not essential.

Still works well enough for RTLS.

Going to see whether layered stack decouplers can be used as an ablative heat shield in Demo.

[Pecan]

5 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

Still works well enough for RTLS.

Going to see whether layered stack decouplers can be used as an ablative heat shield in Demo.

They work as shock absorbers but there's no need for a heat shield so I've never tried them for that.

[Superfluous J]

Regarding the altitude, ignore the altimeter. Watch for your shadow (i.e., never land at night and ideally land near local dawn or dusk) and use it to judge. After a few times watching that, I prefer it to a numeric readout. I have KER installed and ignore its numbers once I'm close enough to the ground to see my shadow.

[sevenperforce]

11 hours ago, Pecan said:

They work as shock absorbers but there's no need for a heat shield so I've never tried them for that.

I need a heat shield if I am going to land propulsively. 

11 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

Regarding the altitude, ignore the altimeter. Watch for your shadow (i.e., never land at night and ideally land near local dawn or dusk) and use it to judge. After a few times watching that, I prefer it to a numeric readout. I have KER installed and ignore its numbers once I'm close enough to the ground to see my shadow.

Or just RTLS because I know the ground around the launch pad is roughly 70 m above SL.