Tweeker

The problem is the Kickback is clearly a space shuttle SRB, the name is even a nod to the bribery scandal of the real-life shuttle boosters. But in-game they don't work as shuttle booster, for a couple of reasons. They are too physically small, as you have noticed, their performance is lacking, they should have about 1.75 to 2 time the performance of a mainsail. and thirdly, the associated LF engine, the vector is too powerful. If you bring the Kickback up to where it's performance should be, {~2600KN} then you end up with a shuttle that can go interplanetary. If you reduce the vector to were it should be performance-wise, { ~450 KN} you can build a kerbal version of the space shuttle that preforms in a scale-correct manor. You also add some interesting game play possibilities such as building pyrios boosters for the shuttle.

I don't think it is an either/or proposition, you can have engines with real-ish stats and also have a fun game. You don't loose any thing by modeling the engines' performance in a semi-accurate way. But if some decides they want to build a kerbalized shuttle it will be difficult, and frustrating because the SRBs are about 1/6th of the needed thrust. The added realism of correctly scaled engine performance doesn't cost any thing, in terms of game play or effort. But having engines that are not balance correctly hurts the game. The space shuttle would need 12 additional rs-25 engines to replace the 2 SRBs, A KSP shuttle can replace it's SRBs with only 1 additional vector. THAT is a problem that needs fixed.

Well it is a simulation game, and they do include real-world parts.

Not just DRM, also spyware such as red shell.

One of the largest problems in KSP is the scaled preformance of the engines. In particular several of the real world engines are terribly out of scale (performance wise) in KSP. To get this right the dev team needs to choose a scale to use when kerbalizing real world engine. For example most parts in KSP are about 66% of real world size. You can re-create parts that look mostly correct, by reducing a part to 66% size, and slotting it into one of the sizes, .0625m, 1.25m 2.5m, etc. The same should be true for performance, take the engines real-world performance and reduce it by a certain amount to find the "kerbalized" performance. As a further illustration, consider the F-1 engine, it is 3.7M in diameter and 1,522,000 LB thrust {SL}, to make it kerbal scale reduce it size to ~66%. So 2.442M which can rounded to 2.5M. Thrust-wise the engines in KSP should be approx 20% of the real word counterpart. That would make the F-1 ~ 304,400 lb thrust {SL} or 1,354KN This give you an engine that is almost dead on the Mainsail or Mastodon. The important thing is to make sure every engine is scaled the same way from the real world to KSP. The problem comes when parts do not follow a consistent scale, in KSP, the Mainsail/Mammoth are 20% of real world thrust, the Vector is 50% of real-world thrust, and the Kickback is 3.7% of real world thrust. Find a scale factor that works for the game, and scale all engine the same.

And you should be able to mount mystery goo in-line. You could build a nice little sounding rocket.

Snap them into the existing nodes, then rotate and offset them.

It would really depend on how it was implemented, I would like it if it was something you had to build over time, maybe by flying mission to bring certain resources to the location.

I recently had occasion to dock a refueler to one of my stations for some contract based money making, I have to say docking is vastly easier than it use to be. For one thing the craft you at docking with will now track your craft and adjust it's facing to point at your craft. But, back to the topic at hand, 1) Rendevous, I assume you can do this, as you asked about docking, not rendezvous. 2) Slow down to ~0.1 m/sec when you are about 50 meters away. 3) switch to the other craft using the brackets keys "[ or ]" 4) click on the docking port of the incoming craft and select set as target, turn on SAS/RCS and aim pro-target, 5) switch back to the first craft, select the docking port you want to dock to and set it a the target, have the pilot aim pro-target, 6) continue closer to the 2nd craft, it will adjust to point toward you, and you to it. slow speed, less than 1m/s are better. 7) success!!! {probably}

Attaching batteries is actually counter productive beyond a certain point. Better to go with 1-2 batteries and the lightest power generation/collection you can come up with.

It is truly maddening to fly a mission to some place like Eloo, or Joomla and find out your lander won't un-dock. I'very taken to using the Claw as a workaround.

That is mostly correct, The Mammoth, Rhino, Twin Boar and Kickback are all modeled after SLS parts, But the specs, and sizes for them are all wrong, The Twin Boar is essentially the Pyrios Booster, that was not selected for the SLS, It consisted of 2X F-1B engine, a modernized and uprated version of the F-1 from the Saturn V It should have about 3,600 SL thrust in KSP. I think it would be 2X 2.5M Engines on a 3.75M tank. Next inline should be the Kickback booster, Which is essentially a space shuttle booster, I think this should be 2.5m with ~2500 SL thrust, tapering off as it burns. The next part would be the 4X RS-25 core, or the mammoth, it should have about 1700 SL thrust rising to 2000 Vac, Each engine should be about 1.875M on a 5M core, But they are burning LH/O2 not RP-1, so either the tank needs de-fuel to about 30% to account for the different density of the fuel, or KSP needs a fluffier fuel. Then you would have the single Vector engine with 425 SL thrust, rising to 500 vacuum, and being 1.875M Lastly would be the J-2X at 300 Thrust, And 1.875M Of course it is far too late in the game for such radical changes

If you are looking at the RD-0120 as opposed to the RD-120, then the thust would be higher, 340 SL 440 VAC All these number are based off the real-world numbers, LBS thrust /1000 or KN *.225,

OK, it looks like you in career mode, I can't see which SRBs or fuel tanks you have unlocked, but first off i would suggest using a smaller parachute, or 2 flat mount parachutes. build an upper section, 1) the command capsule 2) an FL-T-400, 3) A Terrier engine Put a 2ND stage under that, using a Swivel engine and 3-4 fuel tank Check your TWR to makesure it is above 1. If needed and add booster stage on the side, try to keep the TWR low. If i had to guess I think you spin out because you are running the boosters at a high thrust, then when they cut out the high drag at the front end cause the rocket to spin around. Here is a good tutorial:

Amen.

I usually get quite a bit of grief any time I bring it up. So I avoid the subject unless someone brings it up. The gimbal range isn't really that much of an issue, it closely matches the SSME. Thrust, size, and attachment mode are the real issues. It ends up being over powered thrust-wise because it is a 1/4 mammoth and the mammoth was introduced paired with the very wimpy kickback, IRL the ratio of their thrusts would be about 6:1 favoring the "kickback" In KSP it is 0.6:1. The Kickback really needs to be about 2,500 thrust, and 2.5M to be somewhat acurate. That would let you scale the vector back to where it need to be, about 450 thrust. That would somewhat fix the issue, but it is still too small for it's thrust. When it was introduced, there was no 1.875m size, that is is what it needs to be, about 66% scale. Which would match with the 2.5m kickback, (67.38%), & the 3.75m shuttle parts, (72.11%). That would put it at about 166 thrust to cross-sectional area, Right around the Reliant. And it would make for a much more realistic shuttle.

Actually it would be very simple, just a small change in the .cfg, If you have notepad you can do it. literally just changing a 1 to a 0. As you can see most engines have only "stack" and "allowStack" IIRC The vector has attachment rules of 1,1,1,0,0 or allow surface attach. But even without clustering it is OP, it has a stupidly high thrust to cross section, 2.7 times higher than the next closest LF engine.

Upgrade is possible in a way, If you build the satellite with a docking port, or in multiple section docked together then you can upgrade it by adding new sections. Recovery is also possible, either by building a shuttle, or another craft with a heat shield to dock with the craft, or snare it with the claw, and then bring it back.

Just FYI, here is the cross sectional area of the different sizes, 0.625 1.25 1.875 2.5 3.75 5 0.306758 1.227031 2.76082 4.908125 11.04328 19.6325 You can calculate the thrust per cross sectional area based on this, LV-N 11.31186 Terrier 12.04533 Poodle 13.09869 Spark 55.02712 Rhino 109.1161 Skipper 115.8793 Aerospike 125.1231 Swivel 136.8914 Reliant 167.2003 Mainsail 280.9688 Vector 763.2324

The Vector engine has always been OP, and broken. A lot of people use them in clusters, as they have Far more thrust than you would get otherwise, From this topic, https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/124844-vector-engine-possibly-a-little-too-good/&do=findComment&comment=2272192

It Is fantastic for flying lawn chairs, I don't have a photo handy, but here is an example from @purpleivan

Along with a lot of other things, a small solar panel that an engineer can unpack and erect, being able to strut thing with an engineer, after docking for example.

I have fixed a great many problems with the KLAW

I'm not hating on your creativity, however I will offer some suggestions and a small criticism. You see to be on the high side on the thrust of most of the engine, and low on the diameter, I would suggest the following stats, based purely on balancing their thrust and size to the IRL engines: RD 170, Thrust 1650, 2.5M RD 180, Thrust 900, 1.875M RD 191, Thrust 450, 1.25M Although, I would ultimately suggest just Including the RD-191 and making the other version via clustering, RD 120, Thrust 200, 1.25M, almost exactly the same as the LV-T30 & 45 NK-33, Thrust 360, 1.875M or 1.25M ----- tough call on the diameter on this one. RD-58, Thrust 17, .625M ------Yes really, it is a very small engine. s5.92 Thrust 4.4, Tiny, -------Whatever size the Ant is. RD-210 Thrust 130, 1.25M That is just how the thrust and diameter work out, applying a constant conversion factor to them, so the have the same relative proportion to each other, and other real-life engine.

Thinking about it now, it was all so primative.