Claw

You are correct, the mmb moves the camera's focal point. I've not dug around in the game to see if there's a way to remap (and can't atm). However, if you are using windows you can sometimes remap mouse functions using your mouse driver (usually in the conrol panel). I have a simple logitech gaming mouse and it lets me remap a lot of functions, although it has several spare buttons. If your mouse utility doesn't do that, you can try Windows' accessibility feature. That will also let you remap some stuff, although I'm uncertain about the mmb. Sorry, I have no Mac/Linux help. Good luck.

Also, it was only three hours between your posts. Give it some time. Consolidation is a good idea also. Escape systems are handy, but you do need to ensure you have some way of giving the escape piece a push after separation. If you just decouple, the escape pod can get caught up, especially if there are engines firing. So your sepratrons are a good idea. Also think about escaping at low altitude. You might want to make sure the pod goes up away from the ground enough during a takeoff/landing crash.

Oh, thanks! (fixed)

I was going to say, I think I've seen this recently. Vehicle name: Spiderweb Description: I'm following suit with Kusuha and reusing my Ultimate VTOL. I think I might redo the flight first and aim for < 40 mins (currently sits at 42 mins), but I think this qualifies for a few categories. Light Bugger- weighs ~4 tons. More Heat Insulator Needed- Achieved a speed of 2227 m/s See, saving the planet!- Uses only one TurboJet engine Forget the Gas- Landed with enough fuel for 3 more circumnavigations VTOL FTW- Definitely VTOL Flying to that needle in the haystack- Land on the VAB landing pad (probably cost me the < 40 minutes) More than one of us- Brought Bob (pilot) and Billy-Boblorf (co-pilot) I have questions on... - Jesus, that was close!- Buzz the tower --- Confirm you're talking about the control tower by the SPH? - Precision Landing- Land directly on the runway --- Can I do this after the official time? (i.e. Land on the runway, then the VAB, or vice-versa?) - Can you stack these awards? I mean, such as if I redo the flight to get time below 40mins but don't land on the VAB, which submission do you take? - Is there an altitude limit? I might redo this just to see if I can knock some time off. EDIT: Ack. I just noticed I used MJ during construction instead of KER on this one, although everything is stock in flight. If that really bugs you, I can retake the VAB picture with KER instead of MJ.

I'm sure it will be added at some point, perhaps in the form of reentry heating. The Deadly Reentry mod will give you this behavior if you're looking for it.

Two things I see that I would consider "major." (Well, three really.) 1) Nice job on the plane design. It's really stable and flies at 3x physics warp with no problems. Well done. 2) Your CoM is a slightly aft right from the start. Make it want to pitch up a lot during flight, but if you're happy with it then it's fine. 3) You need more TWR from your rocket stage -OR- add more intakes. Your plane has a hard time with the transition getting up to 32km on jets, but the TWR of your aerospike is a bit low to overcome it. I got reasonably close to orbit with your design. I didn't have time to try out my suggestions yet, but hopefully they are a good place to start. You might also want to tweak your liquid fuel amount. I had excess liquid fuel but was short on oxidizer. Also, consider adding a reaction wheel to help out with stability during the air/space transition. That's up to you. Not really required if you're happy with how it flies. Anyway, I was pretty excited about it right from takeoff. I'll try my recommendations later. In the meantime, Good luck!

Hmm. Any ideas on being able to tell how far I've gone? I have had to quickload due to terrain problems and now the flight log is blank... I think I'm rougly 20-25% of the way. Maybe I need to figure out how far 1 degree on Kerbin is... Edit: 1 degree is rougly 10.5km. So after about 5.5 hrs of driving, I'm about 220km north of KSC.

Well, making a piggyback space plane carrier is possible in stock, and the first stage can be recoverable (as I reference the scorpion on the previous page). Two ways to manage it. You can establish the rocket stage on a suborbital ascent path, then keep flying the first stage after separation is more than 2.5km. Or you can fly the rocket portion a bit longer (outside of 2.5km) and make sure you switch back to the first stage before it descends below 23km (so you have buffer before it deletes). Craft can be in the atmosphere, just not too low. Anyway, I chose to set the rocket/payload on a suborbital trajectory, then let it fly out of physics range while recovering the first stage. Then you can switch back to the rocket portion and establish orbit. This was the least risky for my carrier plane. Sure, this is going to depend on a lot of things, but if you plan for it in design it's possible. I think if you want three stages or a massive ship, it's going to be a lot trickier. Start small and work your way up. Good Luck!

I vaguely recall seeing something around a 400t space plane but I don't remember where. And I'm sure there are bigger ones out there. Well, another thing to be aware of similar to part count is engine count. I find that having a cluster of 30 or 40 turbojets can put a heafty dent in the frame count when they are all turned on. Also, spend a lot of time at the beginning figuring out where you are going to mount the landing gear. Wing and fuselage flex become a problem for planes that big. If you are serious about building a massive plane and are considering mods, you may want to think about mods like Procedural Wings or B9 too. Like the welder, they can reduce part count (notably for the wings). I haven't tried either myself (I'm not a big mods guy), but it might help if you don't care about it being stock. BTW: Your space plane wouldn't be an SSTO if you jettison things on the way up. Jettisoning intakes in stock KSP doesn't buy you too much anyway because of the way the drag model works. I'm not saying "don't jettison them," just that you won't need to if you're dropping them because of drag. Plus you might need them later to fly for landing.

[ I have finally started! ] (EDIT: Deleted. I've started (and finished) a new run. Scroll down a few posts.)

Thanks for the info. I've moved around small craft before but never merged something large like stations or bases. Good to know!

Yes, but you can only "control from here" on items that provide control, such as a probe core, command pod, docking port, occupied seat, etc. Which I suppose means we've all been assuming the OP already tried that (or we assumed it only had one control device). So valid point. If the rover was tested before launch and was driving the right way, then you should be able to go back to the original control unit and "control from here." If the rover was connected by a docking port, sometimes the navball latches onto the port.

I keep trying to make a vehicle capable of withstanding crashes. I think I'm getting close to a design, but then I find a new way to crash it. Funny thing is that with all the time I spent trying to create a vehicle capable of withstanding 4x and just drove, I probably would have been there already...

Is this sort of what you're talking about? This one is only two stage, but your idea is possible to design. Just have to be careful about where you release and how you fly. The carrier risks being deleted if it's too low in the atmosphere when the payload runs away from it.

If you have already built and deployed your rover, then you are stuck. I would say if you are thinking of going through the trouble to modify your save file, it's probably easier to create a fixed rover and send it to the launch pad. Then save your game and swap the position & orbit data between your deployed rover and your fixed rover. That's a bit easier than trying to manually rotate parts and reconnect the connection nodes in the code. (BTW: Two thumbs up on the "invert your keyboard" comment. )

Haha, I love it. Good luck!!

I just checked what you said with a minimal payload. MJ shows the liquid setup has about 775 m/s dV extra, but like you said, weighs nearly 26 tons more. If you measure the equivalent weight in SRBs (34t), you end up with slightly more than 4 SRBs. the dV is pretty close to the liquid setup but still lags slightly in the TWR department. Using current in game prices, a bundle of 4 SRBs is less than half the price of the liquid setup. So I suppose the utility of either depends on what you need/want.

Oh yeah. Sorry. I wasn't thinking in terms of flipping the vehicle over. More of adding just a bit of torque for driving. For the smaller rovers I've been playing with, I found that even the torque in the smallest probe core is enough to prevent my vehicle from flipping over during a turn (when you find yourself up 90 degrees on two wheels), but that's a different story than flipping it off it's back.

Congrats! Nice to know three more 'nauts have been saved.

I have also found that holding the rover turn and the SAS roll (into the turn) helps keep it planted firmly. If the reaction wheel is too much torque for your taste, you can add more probe cores. They come in weaker torque varieties and you can mix/match amounts less than 20.

I think I have seen people doing this using KAS. Edit: I haven't looked at the Vanguard plugin in a while. I forgot all about it. Might have to check it out.

Lift is not multiplied by mass if that's what you are asking. However, lift and drag are significant considerations when designing a craft. In real life, a wing's ability to generate lift is not a function of mass. But mass will affect how much lift you need to generate and, henece, the amount of induced drag created. Currently drag is a factor affected by mass. My presumption is that it was an easy way to assume a crossectional area early in development that hasn't been updated yet. But that is pure speculation.

Oh sorry. I see how my comment could be read that way. I wasn't trying to imply that FAR is randomly generated. Just that stock, while buggy, still has rules.

Ack. I want to do this challenge but I'm not creative enough to make a rover that's nice looking AND rugged enough to not explode (especially under warp). I love Mareczex333's design. Spartwo, are you physics warping while you drive?

Nicely done. Take screenshots!