Claw

While most of the mechanics are on the right track, EVA report is maybe a bad example since they transmit at 100%. Each experiment can only gain so much of it's science cap by transmission, and the % is different for each piece of equipment. Also, saying "the first experiment gives 50 out of 100 points" might be a bit misleading. The mechanics are about right, but I think the lowest points you get for the first experiment is 75% and it might be higher. So you get a large portion of the science for the first run of any experiment. It takes roughly 4 runs of an experiment to get all of the science points for that biome (again, this varies). However, your last experiment might yield a mere fraction of a point, so it's up to you to decide if it's worth it.

There was another thread on this very topic. I leave SAS on. The only thing is that you must use different keys to drive your rover from the keys that rotate your SAS. You can either drive in docking mode (as has been suggested) or map the keys separate. When I drove a rover from KSP to Kerbin's north pole, I got pretty good at using both steering AND torque at the same time to keep the vehicle under control (especially when sliding down a mountain...). Also, (I think this was all mentioned but I will second the statements) disable the front brakes and disable rear wheel steering. Keep the CoM as low as is practical.

Yeah, I agree with Slashy. Assumptions are what we had the big debate over. So you're going to have to nail those down before anything else. And decide what are the important parameters to you. dV and transfer time seem pretty obvious, but what about time for 1 orbit at the planet/moon at the assumed altitude? That's the sort of thing that would effect TAC. So just depends on what you want.

And the safe bet is to always make copies of your save games (and keep them somewhere safe) before making big changes to your install.

Yes, this is completely achievable. Experiments do NOT have to return to Kerbin in order to give science. However, as others have said, there is a limit to how much you can gain by transmitting, and it varies by experiment. I am also growing suspicious of this after a few of your posts. Were you able to gather science on Kerbin before you did anything else? I sort of assumed you had been doing science and unlocking parts up to this point. In the science popup window, there are two science bars. They will both show zero for any and all experiments if you are in sandbox mode. Also, you won't be able to go to the R&D center. Also, every once in a while someone's save will glitch and change from career to sandbox, so check the R&D center anyway.

Yep, all of the above are good suggestions. I haven't used RCS build aid, but I hear it's good. If you don't want to use mods, then when you sprinkle RCS ports around your ship, think about the CoM acting like the balance point on a long board. If you don't want (or can't) put matching mirrored RCS ports at both ends, then place them so they balance. If you have 1 port way out on side A that is 10m from the CoM, you can place 2 ports on side B of the CoM 5m away. Or 3 ports at 3.3m away. Or 2 separate ports on side B, 1 at 2.5m and the other at 7.5m. However you split it up, the number of meters on each side of the CoM (when you add it up) should be equal. Or you can sort of eyeball it and let the auto-balancing SAS help out.

To piggyback on this... I typically find that part clipping allowed by the editor isn't a problem. It seems to do a reasonably good job of preventing too many things from overlapping. It's not usually a problem till you enable the debug ALT+F12 clipping and start stacking things up (like Kasuha said). If you aren't careful there, that's when it'll cause all kinds of problems. I've seen parts jimmy lose doing this and the rest just comes apart.

Yes, like Gluttony said. No need to turn them "on." They always produce power. How many you need will depend on what you are doing, how much battery you are taking with, and how fast you want it to recharge. For small probes that spen a lot of time in the dark, they are great. Better than solar power, they always generate power at a constant rate. The downside is (as previously posted) they weigh more than the solar panels and produce less power. So that's where you need to make your choice. Although remember, there's nothing stopping you from using both an RTG and solar panels. I know there is a mod, but don't recall the name off hand...

Welcome to the forums! In addition to the wheel base... Something else that gets people too is to make sure your keys that do roll/pitch/yaw are different than the keys you are using for turning/forward/backward. If they are the same, then sometimes when you try to move forward or turn, the rover will flip easier because you are adding extra torque. Some people also drive in docking mode to keep the torque from adding in. Also, you generally want to steer only with the front wheels, and disable steering on the others. Disable brakes on the front wheels, and make sure they are enabled for the back wheels.

Ahh wait. I figured it out. At least it worked on my test case. On your truss segment, change the attm = 1 To attm = 0 That should do it! Hopefully you didn't leave already!! Edit: If anything, you taught me how to fix one more docking problem. Sorry if I was too late to help you.

I'm sorry, it's not your mods that's stopping me. It's that I don't have a computer capable of loading that right now. I'm running a stripped down version on a very incapable computer at the moment. I have to head out. Unless you want to wait, you might have to hyper up a new one. Or wack a kerbal... I'm very sorry.

Sorry it's not working. It's hard to troubleshoot this when I can't load your save. Double check these things didn't change. I'll try to replicate your setup on mine in the mean time. Make sure the docking port still says this: Decouple { active = True guiActive = True And set dockUId = 0

I'm guessing you have probably already done "high orbit" solar science. For "low orbit" science, you need to get down to 1M km. And welcome to the forums/KSP!

Okay. Not sure if this will mess up the ship, but try to fix the truss nodes. It's the next part down. Make sure you do those other changes I posted too. name = trussPiece3x uid = 431467540 mid = 27095001 parent = 3 Find the nodes and change them to look like this... srfN = None, -1 attN = bottom, 3 attN = top, 5 I'm going to guess the rotations will be all screwed up, but maybe it'll let you get it apart.

Yeah, no problem. Thanks for stipping the file, that helps a lot. And I was asking about the lander can because that makes it a lot easier for me to find my way around in the file, but I think I got it sorted out. Kinda funny that I can tell about the symmetry. I think when you put that truss piece on, it went on as a surface attachment. So that might be why the decoupling wasn't set up correctly. I'm hoping that fix I posted, though not elegant, will work. *keeps fingers crossed* EDIT: Oh boy, and I hope you remembered to make a copy. I forgot to remind you...

Okay. I can't verify it, but try this. You're looking for this docking port (please forgive the lack of code tags). Search for the uid. PART { name = dockingPort3 uid = 626288285 mid = 27095001 Scroll down to the attachment nodes and make them read as follows. srfN = srfAttach, 0 attN = None, -1 attN = top, 4 Then scroll down a little and find the state... state = Ready And change this to "state = PreAttached" Give that a try and see if it works. I was going to have you attach the truss nodes correctly, but I'm afraid the rotation/position numbers will be messed up. If this doesn't work, then we can try the truss nodes.

I'm looking at it now. Might take me a little bit because I can't load up your save. Is that lander can your root part? EDIT: I think it's not coming off because it thinks the truss is surface attached. Did you put these on with symmetry?

Hey Austin Welcome! There is Star Trek themed craft floating about if you are interested. I'd do that thing with my hand, but you can't see it anyway.

Hi Marco, and welcome! I agree, this game is quite addictive and the forum is great!

Aww Jake. I can't see your pictures at all. Well, I see the poor Kerbal laying on the first one, but the others are so dark I can't see the craft at all.

You also need to be careful shunting around fuel with fuel lines. Some of the fuel rules are tricky, even though the connections may make logical sense to you. You can find the fuel flow rules here. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/64362-Fuel-Flow-Rules-%280-23-5%29

In general, turning off all SAS is usually the forum answer. Personally, however, I find it depends a lot on the size of the elements being docked and how far off axis you come in. Generally I leave the target's SAS on (usually the station) and turn off the SAS for whatever is docking. I usually turn it off at the last minute though. If the docking craft is small, I might actually leave it on so the force of the port doesn't send it flinging off. If it's heavy and I came in off axis, I might turn it back on briefly as the parts align to stop/slow any more rotation or movement. Realize though that this can lead to port misalignment, so use it sparingly. Anyway, maybe not the answer you're looking for but that is (in general) what I do. I should also say it depends on the station. Some stations perform poorly when bumped with SAS on. So if you are getting a lot of flex and the torque modules are bouncing around, you may want to turn it off.

Well, without getting into too much of a tangent, aerodynamic forces are also at play (whereas in Goddard's rocket, they weren't). High wing gives dihedral effect, a positive stability force. So when an aircraft with high wings is disturbed in roll, the wing inside of the turn "sees" more airflow than the wing outside of the turn. This generates more lift and causes the low wing to want to raise back up. A highly roll stable craft would right itself and be done. A marginally roll stable aircraft may right itself, but oscillate as it finds neutral. An unstable craft just keeps rolling. In the case of a low wing craft, the CoL slips up and under, to the other side of the CoM and contributes to the roll. Hence, unstable. So I suppose it isn't really that the CoM is "hanging," but rather where the CoL is. Maybe it just depends on your point of view? Again, there are a lot of interacting forces at play. So there are lots of variations on this, but that is the basics of dihedral.

Yep. Generically speaking... Wings high = more stable Wings low = less stable Wings canted up = more stable Wings canted down = less stable You can see the effect of each of these by looking at the CoM/CoL relationship. CoL High (or low) has similar effects for CoL Aft (or fore) of the CoM. Keptins aero article is pretty good at explaining this. But it is, in essence, what you said. The weight dangles below the CoL and gravity naturally pulls it down. There's more behind it than that, but that's the basics.

Okay. There are certainly things that can help with that. Here is a post from Taki117 That has some useful links to get you started. Don't feel forced to use mods if you don't want to. Also, here are some tutorials from Pecan that might help out. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/79658-Exploring-The-System-%28Pt-1%29-A-design-tutorial-campaign You can also dig around on Youtube and look for short videos on how to reach orbit, and how to get to/land on Mun. Take it a step at a time. Don't feel like you have to watch a 40 minute video then do it all. Focus on one thing, like getting to orbit, and do it several times before moving on. Good luck!