Claw

Hi Ryan, and welcome to the forums! I'm not sure if Booster meant mods to the game or mods as in forum moderators, but there are plenty of both. Hope you have fun here, and good luck! Peter, if you are having troubles or have a specific question, check out the forum below. There are lots of people that are more than happy to provide help. (Maybe more help than you want. ) http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/forums/15-Gameplay-Questions-and-Tutorials

Hi CoFFian! Nice space station. I like the green lighting, although the psychedelic flag always made me dizzy. Haha Welcome to the forums! (Or more so. )

Heya Cosmo! Welcome to the forums. Ha Glad to see you and I'm looking forward to new videos.

Hyper Edit is popular. You can zap your craft onto the surface of the Mun and test it there. I think Taki is right about a gravity mod that you can use on Kerbin. Unfortunately I don't recall the name of it either.

Some science transmits at 100%, and crew reports are one of those. Take a scan through that wiki and it'll tell you what the transmission rates are for each experiment. Specifically for crew reports, you can EVA and collect the report if you don't want to transmit it. Then store it back in the capsule. It's a bit goofy for crew reports, but it's just the way it's set up right now.

(I suppose this thread should be moved to the add-on forum...) Anyway. Yes, MJ will automatically manage throttles for you with the "Limit to terminal velocity" option in the ascent guidance. Alternatively, you can set up a custom window to display the current terminal velocity. HOWEVER, these options do not work with FAR installed, since FAR zeros out the drag. I'm not sure if FAR has a way to display terminal velocity, but I would guess so. For MJ, you can also use options such as "limit acceleration to..." or "limit throttle to...". If you limit acceleration to 2Gs, that will approximate flight at terminal velocity for the initial portion of the flight. Once you have pitched over a good ways and are in thinner atmosphere, you can remove that limit. Unfortunately, turning on MJ is just about an all or nothing proposition. If you want it to control the heading, it will also want to control the ascent angle. It will also max the throttle unless you give it some limit. I recommend that you play with the various MJ ascent settings to try and understand them. For ecample, you can open the ascent path editor and move the slider left/right while the rocket is in flight. This will cause the rocket to pitch up/down during flight and you can watch what it does. MJ also has a lot of settings that are not on the default ascent guidance page. You can dig around in the window editor (another MJ tab) to find them all. Edit: I almost forgot. You can move the center of lift around by placing fins and control surfaces near at the bottom of your craft. That will pull the CoL down and also make your rocket a bit more stable.

Yes, I'm aware of the difference in pitch/yaw. It's going to depend on the orientation of probe cores and yadda yadda. I was trying not to get caught up in every detail, but you are correct. If I would have said yaw, it would be the same problem. Since we're talking about rockets, there's usually less of an obvious difference in pitch/yaw (besides the buttons you push). Anyway, nitpicky but accurate. Pecan: I read this post again and I was worried I came off a bit snotty. I don't mean to be. You are correct to point it out. I was just trying to simplify and be consistent with the OP.

It's okay. Again, I won't add anything just yet except to say try reading the link below. The wiki page has gotten a lot better recently. Science can still be confusing, so I would recommend just tryinh to read it straight through once, even if parts don't make sense. The try doing some science (maybe just on the launch pad), and read the article again. http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Science There are a ton more resources than this, but it's a descent place to start. Oh, and just to clarify my earlier statement, a science lab is not required to do science. It has a purpose, but it's not required.

Yes, you are in the right spot. If you move the percent slider up and down you can watch how it flatens the shape, or makes it curve more upward. For FAR, you want a more gentle curve and not one where it bends in half and flies out. There is also options for what altitude to start and complete the turn. For FAR, you'll want to move the start altitude down. The end altitude will depend on the abilities of your rocket, but has much less of an impact on your ship's stability except to control how quickly MJ completes the pitch down maneuver during flyout. Yes, MJ performs the turn but it does it however you specify in that trajectory window mentioned above. You don't specify pitch in degrees, but you specify how sharp the turn is (with percentage) and how long it will take over that curve (with the altitudes). The more distance between the start and end altitudes, the less quickly the craft will pitch down (overall rate) throughout the whole turn. The percentage will also control how quickly the craft pitches, but in a slightly different way. Essentially controlling how sharp the initial turn is, and the shape of the trajectory. Make sure that you actually engage MJ's autopilot thoug, or it won't do anything. After the initial pitch over, it is providing inputs. But it doesn't take much for it to follow the curve after that. You can also play with the "corrective steering" option. That can help compensate for under-powered or under-controlled craft.

Yes, thank you.

You're right, science can be a bit confusing. Without getting bogged down in details, you're better off returning the science samples to Kerbin. You get the maximum science points that way. There are a couple ways to bring back all that science. - Do your science, then return the whole experiment module. - Do your science, then send a kerbal on EVA to take the science and store it in a capsule. There is a bit more to it than that, but that's a start. The science lab is useful because you can store multiple copies of the same experiment (by module type and biome). Also, the lab lets you reuse sci jr and goo containers. Transmitting works too, but there is a lower cap to how much science you can gain through transmissions.

What mods are you using? Everything else you are saying sounds on the right track. And there is no command you need to issue to the port.

Welcome to the forums! Your probe looks great. Good luck with the landing.

Welcome to the forums! Sometimes trying to understand orbital mechanics makes me feel like I'm spinning in circles.

Hey Kenneth, and welcome to the forums! If you are having problems, try looking at this thread. One of the first things I would recommend is copying (not moving) KSP into a directory that isn't your desktop or a place like documents or program files. That can cause KSP problems. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/24536-Self-help-for-crashes-look-here-first-if-KSP-crashes If you are still having problems with the game, and you're keeping mods installed, try checking this forum: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/forums/13-Add-on-Requests-and-Support If you switch to running without mods, you can use this forum: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/forums/58-Support-Bugs Or this one for generic questions: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/forums/15-Gameplay-Questions-and-Tutorials?styleid=2

Questions? We love answering those. Welcome to the forums!

Glad you got it figured out. Eventually you'll want to force the green marker to be on top of the pink marker. Then you're headed directly at (or away from) your target. Sounds like you are on the right track.

For a ship that small, I would actually recommend keeping the speed up just a little so the claw makes full contact. The target needs to snuggle up to the post in the center of the claw's teeth. If you are grabbing an angled surface or a round part (like a fuel tank), then you need to hit as perpendicular to the surface as possible.

Yes, if you are using FAR the gravity turns need to be very gentle. MJ tends to be pretty abrupt with it's default turn. Being that agressive will result in tumbling or the rocket breaking up. As Pecan said, do the turn a bit more gradual. You can also start it sooner with the improved FAR aerodynamics.

Perhaps you could simply not use the nodes? You are not required to put them down. (but I guess they would cheat. ) Also, are you asking to just get rid of the trajectory prediction? Or also the current blue orbit line? There is a patched conics section in the settings.cfg. You can try to zero out the number of conics and see how much that handicaps the display. Or maybe it'll invite a div-zero error...?

I don't think there are separate x, y, z scale factors unfortunately. You can change the node location in the same part.cfg file though. I think it's called attach_node or something like that (forgive me, I don't have my comp atm). It is almost always one of the lines near the top of the file. I think it has 7 parameters.

There are mods that extend physics range and lower the delete altitude. I "think" one of those types of mods is called TT Never Unload, but I'm not certain.

Hey, and welcome! Glad to see you here and glad to see you're still excited after playing so long.

Hi syndicate, and welcome to the forums. I'm mostly a stock person myself, but I do use MechJeb for information (especially when building). It's the only mod I'm running right now. Don't be ashamed of using it, but also don't be afraid to learn. ScanSat is awesome too. I used it for a little bit a while back. I'm excited to see that it's being updated. Perhaps I will download it again soon. Good luck! -Claw

Heya NewportBox! Don't give up and don't be afraid to ask questions. There is a ton to learn but a lot of fun is in the discovery.