deltalambdamu

Use the action groups. Assign the "1" key to deploy fairings, "2" to deploy solar panels. I recently made a lander with a light under the landing struts. I set it to activate with the "Gear" action group to illuminate the ground during descent.

I am unsure if this is an issue with the inline decouplers because I almost never use them. The last I known they worked correctly. However, the radial decouplers always seemed to have absolutely zero ejection force. When I use them, they detach from the ship, but they do not "push" parts away. In fact, I have to use the small sepatrons to get any kind of "push." But all this does is increase part count, costs, and complicates staging. This also limits me to using the decouplers that stick out from the ship so that I don't destroy a fuel tank with the sepatrons (I actually don't know if this is an issue, but I'm not risking it). Using the STEAM version.

Radial in/out?

I've not played this game in months and just played it again today. I noticed that the Navball is different. In Orbit mode, I see a light-blue, circular marker. Later, I was spinning my rocket around to do a landing and saw a pink triangle like the one that appears on the map when plotting a maneuver. Like I said, it's been months since I last played so everything new(er) is, well, still brand new to me. What is new in terms of the Navball? I noticed already that if the maneuver node is not shown, an arrow will point towards it.

The problem with remembering DV maps is (similar to): When I need to remember it: Short of keeping note cards for every game I play, how am I supposed to remember something I will rarely use? And guessing how much DV you have currently? I recently sent a two part ship to land on the Mun. I launched a refueling mission for the second part of the ship. I was going to transfer some of the second-stage's leftover fuel, after docking, to refuel the second ship. I used twice as much fuel as I anticipated to get docked with it. After transferring all of it, I barely had enough to get into Munar orbit with the second ship.

I understand both sides of this. For the longest time, I played games on a computer not built for games [/storyofmylife]. I never told you guys the story of how a few years ago (3?) I quadroupled my computers video memory by replacing the video card with an 8MB one. I understand that KSP willn't run on a 512 MHz Intel P2 and 256 MB RAM (but I might try it anyways). But I also know that a $1600 rig will be too much. I built our current PC on $600, reusing old parts like the keyboard/mouse, and monitor. And it plays many games very well (minus the video card being my bottleneck). And it's the first time in my life that the computer can play more than three games smoothly, and new ones at that! On out last computer, the only games I could count on playing smoothly were: Quake 2, Panzer Commander, and Jane's WWII Fighters (all from the Win 95-98 era)(thanks for reminding me to get DOSBox to play Duke Nukem). Heck, even lightweight (read: standalone) games ran choppy.

I think that's what I got mine for a few months ago I have a GTX 440, the 2GB version. The only time I had an issue was when I started a career in KSP. Every time I got Jeb out of the command pod, the screen turned black. I deleted the save and started a new one. It's not happened since. As for my build:

I always begin my burns 25-30 seconds early (sometimes 5 or 10, depending on how much DV I'm going to gain). I'll aim to finish the burn at the 0 second mark. I also try to get within 1 m/s, but no more than 5 m/s of the target velocity. And it almost always works great. The most trouble I had out of it was getting to Eeloo. But that probably had more to do with when I started the launch and the unbalanced rocket itself. But do play around with the nodes and stuff as r4pt0r said.

Was launching a rocket with a rover the other day. I was going to show my sister's boyfriend me dropping some empty tanks (asparagus staging in a nutshell). Me (thinking): "Time to drop the empty tanks" Game: "Let's drop all the tanks" Wasn't my last staging accident.

Here's that video: I tried to have it up earlier, but uploading videos to YouTube eats ALL of our bandwidth. And when you have 80+ minutes to upload the video, there is nothing you can do besides TV. I cancelled the upload twice so we could use the PS3. But it's up now.

Or you could've done like I did. I sent my first rover ever to the Mun just two days ago. I mounted it to the top of a two-stage rocket using Asparagus staging. Stage one got me out of Kerbin's atmosphere. And stage two got me into LKO, to the Mun, and landed. Yes, I used the entire stage two as the lander. Just sit the thing down on its engines and tilt it forward so the rover's wheels hit the surface. Stage two had so little fuel left that I didn't feel bad abandoning it. I used docking ports to hold it all together. So I simply undocked the rover, which had an SAS module which made it front-heavy. To fix this, I added a docking port to the very front of the rocket. I lined it up to the docking port on stage two and undocked it from the rover. The module docked to the rocket, and the rover was free to do whatever. Just make sure that if your rover has a mono-prop. tank, that it is full. I forgot this once.... once. I'll make a video of this soon (now, maybe even).

I guess it was the game just acting really stupid. It wouldn't be the first time. But I went to make a video and noticed the game decided to delete a fuel line (actually, it just attached both ends to the same tank). I fixed it, re-attached the struts because one of them got completely deleted. I then tried to fly the rocket again to see if the issue persisted. And everything is working fine now. I have the thing in LKO getting ready for a transfer burn, though I may need to launch a refueling mission first. Here are my ships: Rover - SPH Rover Ship - VAB Rocket

I tried to build a rover for Mun. I got a good design I like. So I then build a rocket to get it there. All of my launches ended the same way. The rocket would start tilting west. Then it would start tilting north a few seconds later. ASAS, Retraction Wheels, and RCS are not enough to keep it straight, even with me pushing the buttons to point it the other direction. I thought it might be an aerodynamics issue. In the VAB, I enable the two buttons for center of mass and center of lift. The center of gravity is slightly off center to the right of the center of mass. The center of thrust is off center to the left of the center of mass, and pointing slightly to the left. I use symmetry mode when building rockets, and this was no exception. I thought the rover itself might've been the problem. I built a small rocket with the rover to see if the effects stayed. The rocket flew pretty straight. I removed the rover completely from the problematic rocket. SAS and RCS were enough to keep it straight, so I disabled them. When I did, the rocket did pretty much what it had been doing, but to a lesser extreme. Just to see if it'd make a difference, I added 6 multiconnection ports (each with mass 1.6) and the only thing that changed was the center of mass. I didn't fly it, though. I'll post the craft files tomorrow, but what are your first thoughts?

Docking is hard If you've not done it before. In my first attempt ever, I tried to come in at a > 45 degree angle. I use the docking alignment mod (not sure of name - it's on the first page of this thread) and docking cam to dock now. But it can still be a pain. I recently sent a docking deck to my station (pics later) for fuel tanks and ships. It was awful. Turns out that those Sr docking ports require a way more precise angle before they'll attach. And my RCS port placement didn't help. Translational controls made the ship want to rotate. I came in as lined up as I could get going 0.4 m/s from 4.5+ m. After the magnetic field took over, I stared at the ship for a few seconds wondering if it was going to connect. It did. Now I get to send three empty orange tanks so I can bring my temporary ships back home.

Ever since I learned that rockets do not generate their own abort system, immediately followed by how to set one up, I've been putting decouplers and parachutes everywhere. I've used the tower a few times before learning about this, though. I tend to use the tower when I'm building a large rocket. I've been thinking of using it in recent builds, but it's be just for fun if anything else.

In my latest save, he was testing a rover design. He decided to try climbing the steepest edge of the launch pad and flipped over. The game decided Jeb was no longer existent. After switching between four vessels, he finally made it out from under the wreckage, but was uncontrollable. He is now MIA somewhere. On my first save, he is in an elliptical orbit around Kerbin, slowly aerobreaking on each pass of the periapsis.

Landing a probe on the Mun within just 24 hours of game play. It was also my first landing ever. Give me some time, though. I'm planning a rescue mission.

Your Kerbals are alive and most of your ship is in tact. However, you was unable to complete your mission. So the mission is a fail. But your rescue was a success.

if you attached all of your parachutes to decouplers? Well, I guess it would be if you forgot which decouplers. I think I just thought of a way to play Russian Roulette. I'll be back.

There's another way, but I can't remember it right now. Maybe it was hold the mouse wheel down and drag it?

How would you guys send a three man pod to the Mun and back? I added SRB's to FRED, but ran out of fuel before coming close to touchdown. Probably because I actually had to go into an orbit around it this time. I then tried asparagus staging, but ran out of patience and went through all stages shortly after starting the test. It probably would've worked too. So how would you build a rescue ship? It has to launch unmanned. It must carry enough fuel to perform an inclination change should one be needed. And it needs to have a three man pod so I can rescue everyone on one mission.

Here're images of it. Pod+Wreckage Wreckage The Ship The rocket's third stage is actually quiet good. I had to start firing it halfway into the ejection burn. And it got me to the Mun. If I made the first two stages more efficient, and hadn't crashed, I could have made a return trip easily. I might've even had a small amount of fuel left. What I might do is, after making it more efficient, add a remote guidance unit to it. Send it as a probe and transfer the Kerbalnauts. Then it's as simple as making the return trip. But in the end, I can say this didn't turn into a complete failure. I planned on having them spend a night on the Mun. I mean, I technically have no choice but to perform the mission now, right? And, after all, the mission was an overnight stay on the Mun.

So I took a very long break from KSP and decided to start a new mission today. It was simple; send three Kerbals to the Mun and bring them back. I built the largest inefficient rocket and named it FRED (********** Ridiculous Environmental Disaster) after the real life Lockheed C-5 Galaxy. I made it to the Mun with little to no fuel left on landing. I throttled a bit too much and sent the lander upwards. It ran out of fuel just as I did too, so all I could do was try not to let the thing flip as it skidded across the terrain. I didn't succeed. Upon it landing on it's side, the capsule got ejected from the base. Everything I needed to do well was on the, now labeled, debris. The capsule has two retractable solar panels and four parachutes. Meanwhile, the 'debris' has all of my RCS fuel, two of two batteries, and two thermal generators. And all of it was kept unexploded on impact. Now I get to launch a rescue mission. On top of sending an empty three man capsule, I probably will come nowhere close to the crash site. I did not have a choice of where to land my first one. My ineficient rocket was put on course to literally crash into the Mun. I landed crashed on a hill inside a crater. So not only do I not know how far off the site I will land my rescue ship, I don't know if I need to build a rover for the Kerbals to ride to and from.

I actually have a website named after the physics constant, mu knot. And I am in the process of starting a YouTube channel with the same name I used here. I was going to use my typical username, qazxsw21000, but chose to go differently. But anywho, thanks for the welcome.

Yeah. I hit "control from here" on the ship's dock port, but nothing at all happened. It's as if I'm a terrible pilot the game isn't supposed to give me that option, or the button isn't linked to a script. I will check this out.