Claw

You might get faster answers about specific mods using the add-on forum, or posting in the mod's specific thread. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/forums/13-Add-on-Requests-and-Support Good luck, -Claw

While we appreciate the advice you all are giving, this request for help is 2 months old. I imagine goldenpeach has it figured out by now.

Have you double checked your keybindings? Make sure the "up" key didn't get mapped to something random.

Try maybe building it like a giant lever. Perhaps with either an empty and full orange tank through which you can transfer ballast and make it tip. Or maybe the giant lever with a lot of SAS units on it. Then use the sas to tip the lever forklift system up. Are you trying to keep this all stock?

Not to start an "intake spam" war, but here is a way to do an intake stack that isn't a complete eyesore. I made this "intake stick" so that it wasn't such an eyesore, but you can also pick up the whole thing and move it during construction. No ALT+F12 clipping is required. Start out by placing a pocket I-beam, laying it flat, and rotating it 90 degrees to work on the smooth side. (I forget the correct keystrokes, so maybe you can add that.) Place a small cubic strut, laying on its side, at the forward end of the I-beam. Attach an intake to the cubic strut's front node. Alt-click the cubic strut to copy it. Slide the new copy back until the cubic strut connects to the I-beam and just turns green. Repeat as desired. Flip around a nosecone and attach it to the second-to-the-last cubic strut to close it off. If you need to move it, remove the nosecone and grab the I-beam. Good luck! -Claw

The amount of dV will depend on the trajectory of the asteroid. The amount of fuel required to get that dV will depend on the size of your ship and the size of the asteroid. They can get upwards of 3000+ tons. Just so happens we've been discussing this recently. You can check here, then come back and post more questions if you need to. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/82774-Asteroid-Intercept-Fuel (Whoops, I fixed the link.)

Looking at the launcher for the version number can be unreliable depending on which KSP you are using. If you check the KSP directory, there is a file called build.txt that has the KSP version in it. 0.23.5.464 is the most recent as of this posting. I have no idea if KAS does something wacky to the kerbal menu.

Inclination is not the same as cardinal direction. If you launch straight east, your Kerbin inclination is zero. Let's look at the last picture. Hopefully that orbit line is in front of Kerbin (sometimes it disappears when you zoom in). Make sure it is in front, and not behind. Based on what you said, I think your inbound leg is down and to the left. The reason why your inclination is 106 when you launched east is because the inbound leg is 106 degrees clockwise from straight east. So you really need to launch on an orbital heading of around 196. It actually looks slightly more than that to me, but it's a start. Also, you MUST make sure you time warp and launch when KSP is on the correct side (under the orbit). Don't be on the far side when you launch, or you'll be going the wrong way. Perhaps it would make more sense to simply try a launch, and burn toward the heading you think. Watch the map. If your orbit line doesn't line up with the asteroid, try turning your ship more. Remember if you launch to the west, you need to give the orbit line time to switch direction.

If you are using my tutorial, it is meant for you to launch along the inbound leg of the asteroid. The inbound leg does not have the circle on it (the circle shows Kerbin escape). If you follow the pictures and description, it shows that you need to warp time until the launch pad is under the asteroid's path. Then launch toward the inbound leg. You must also target the asteroid in order to get all the info to show up. If you do all that correctly, you AN will end up as 180 (or close to it). If you have already launched the other way or your orbit isn't aligned, then it's too late to follow the first several steps of my tutorial. If you try to reverse your orbit, it will cost a lot of dV (unless you do some other tricks). Also realize that you need to plan a dV budget for getting there. So far all we have been discussing is dV to move the asteroid.

Also, if this will be a competiton then it probably belongs in the forum below. There are some rules listed in there that explain how to set up a challenge like this. Plus I think you would get more interest in the challenge. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/forums/26-Challenges

I'm sure someone will point out that these things don't happen in KSP. However (off topic) these things wouldn't be that bad. Heat - the Sun dumps way more heat on the planet than a passing asteroid ever could. Air - It doesn't have enoughvolume to displace a significant amount of air. It might drag some of it out of the atmosphere, but it wouldn't be much. Tide - It's nowhere near large enough to cause changes to the tides. It's not even big enough to have gravity to keep a kerbal on it. Dust - is constantly raining down already. It just doesn't make the fiery entrance of a meteor. ---- Stickhammy, You can guesstimate what the dV of that ship will be using the dV equation. That ship looks massive enough that you might have over 1k dV with a 'roid attached. As for all those big engines, you might actually need them. As it stands, MJ estimates over 17 minutes to use all that dV. I'm sure it's a bit out of whack with that nuke, but if the burn takes too long the asteroid may be on it's way, or at the very least, make you use all your dV to keep it on track. Edit: I did some estimates based on pure guesswork. I estimated your ship to be about 1200t wet with 1000t of fuel. With a 2000t asteroid you have around 1300 dV, and a 3000t asteroid will have around 900-1000dV. I don't recall how much you need from an approach such as what you have, but I have a gut feeling that 1300 dV is enough. I would say definitely enough if you are also going to aerobrake. Oh yes, and pushing an asteroid that big can be pretty difficult. They tend to get wobbly and it's hard to line up the CoM.

Yeah, a scoop option works pretty well if you can't quite pilot the ladder to Jeb. If you do try to pilot the ladder to him, be careful not to send him spinning away because then it's a real pain. If you don't want to build a funnel/scoop on the front, you can also send up an external command seat. They have a bit bigger boarding radius. Also, if you send a capsule/can to save him make sure there is avtually space. Daring rescue kerbals often like to stow away. You wouldn't be the first to execute a heroic rescue mission only to find out after you got there that there are no empty seats.

Here is a tutorial I built that will get you out to that asteroid in roughly 30-40 days for an initial look (or first attempt mission). That gets you to it around 90 days before it gets to Kerbin. You can then claw on and either get an idea for how much that thing weighs (for further designs) or send a ship to move it around. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/75759-Asteroid-Rendezvous-Outside-of-Kerbin%E2%80%99s-SOI

Glad it worked out for you. There is certainly no "claim" about it being blocked. Looks like your craft was in the way. It often helps to have solar panels on at least two opposite sides of the ship. That way they will receive sunlight at nearly any angle (except right on the edges). Some people will also slap on the small single panels to take care of the "just in case" edge scenario or for when they forget to extend the main panels.

What really messes me up now is if I mess up and put the contol body on rotated 90 degrees, so that yawing right on takeoff points north. Usually followed by a "Revert to VAB" a little after.

I agree, which is probably why it'll be easier to skycrane down on top of it rather than try to get up underneath it. Lining up exactly with the CoM shouldn't matter too much if you lift off and drag it behind the ship. Starting the engines and providing a little pull before unlocking would probably work best. I would think if you unlock it too early the lifting craft would flop over to one side. Too late and the ship will want to pull to the side. I suppose my first attempt would be with just enough power to lift the craft, but not enough to lift the whole thing before unlocking. It might want to swing around during the initial lift off. It will probably help to add a bit of torque too to help keep it straight. Man, I wish I could try this out.

Yes, what Kasuha just showed. I was going to try and describe it but it was too difficult without pictures. That craziness happens all the time in the SPH. Very annoying.

Nice work! Congrats.

Now that you've almost figured that out... The thing that really messed me up for a while is that the map always shows an orbital line, and not a flight path line. So if your navball is in surface mode and you're traveling straight north in a high flying, fast airplane, the map line will show you going north and a little east. The map takes Kerbin's orbit into account. This causes the headings to look wrong on the navball, but it's because of relative surface direction vs. orbital path. The orbital path is predicting where the airplane will be relative to Kerbin's core, but Kerbin's surface will rotate to catch up under the flight path. Relative to the surface, you will go straight north. If you try to make that map line go straight north, then you actually end up going slightly west over the surface. This caused me all kinds of navigation problems when I first started because I did a lot of airplane and surface operations.

5x symmetry does look nice, but the angle snap does make it a nightmare to line other stuff up. I think I agree that I would prefer more complex symmetry options. For example, having only two objects of a 3-way symmetry. That leaves that third spot open for me to attach something different. So I suppose what would work out better for this is if you could remove just one of the symmetrically placed items and the rest remain The SPH symmetry definitely needs some work. I'm not even sure I can describe it, but some of the placement and symmetry is darn annoying. More mirror options would be nice. But then again, how much is too complex for the basic game? You don't want to scare people off, but also want to make enough options for advanced users...

I agree, pictures! (They keep us from guessing about everything.) So I guess I'll put my guesses below. The docking side of all the docking ports has a lighter, thin gray ring around it. It's not obvious enough on the Sr port till you actually notice it, but once you see it, it's easier to tell. Also, there are single ladder handles in tri-symmetry around the Sr port that can aid in alignment. Although I agree that it could all be a little more obvious. Anyway, also make certain that nothing is in or around the port. They don't like it and it can cause problems (especially if things are clipped). In addition to making sure the port is facing the right way, make sure you didn't accidentally connect the wrong node to the ship. Again, with the Sr ports, it is sometimes easy to accidentally connect the top node to a ship, even though it's facing the right way and you meant to connect the bottom node. Other people have said to make sure the SAS is off. And if your ships are long or heavy, make sure the faces are coming in very flat to each other. Heavy/long ships are hard for the magnets to swing around to complete the docking.

Nice! I always love seeing other people's contraptions. Mine are always so "meh" that I love to see what other wackyness people come up with. I was thinking along the same lines as Kasuha, except with maybe a bit more symmetry (maybe more stable?). I was probably also inspired by one of my VTOLs. Obviously this is way to small for your needs, but similar idea to Kasuha. Among other things, this particular craft can move 40% of it's weight in cargo from KSC to KSC2 (maybe 50%ish if you count kerbal passenger weight). You could widen this out, move and add TurboJets/fuel to the outer ring, and put a claw in the bottom center. Here is the whole album if you want to see more angles: http://imgur.com/a/nW4eO I will also suggest that it might be slightly easier to design a craft that does a suborbital ballistic landing in/around KSC. It might require less fuel and engines. However, it might be more difficult to get a precise landing. Maybe a suborbital hop, pop some chutes from your skycrane to keep the right end up, then a power assist landing (with quicksave). Then perhaps you can practice VTOL-ing it around KSC right where you want it. Well, it may or may not be easier (so I don't mean to get into a debate about that), but it's just another thought. Can't wait to see what you come up with, danilon.

Yes. The easiest way to figure out what you need to copy/paste would be to make a simple craft with your part on it and launch it. Quicksave, edit the file, and look for your newly launched ship. You should be able to spot the new section of code that you need to copy and paste into the corresponding part on the station. Just make sure you don't try to copy the whole part. Just the module you're adding, or it might unlink your whole station. Keep a backup copy... Good luck, -Claw

Even without DRE, it'll just delete when it reaches 0.1 atmosphere. Anyway, this thread is a bit old...

Ha, I was thinking that too. Could have run this mission in real time.