RocketBlam

Well, it was apparently a game cache problem. I checked my cache and it had to update 2 files, and then it worked.

I didn't know about this, thanks. It sounds like that may be what MechJeb is using for "SmartRCS".

I've put the spacecraft in an orbit very close to the target, much closer than I usually have to get. It has the right equipment on board, and it is going the right direction. I do not understand why it won't complete.

I think I heard during 1.04 that they were going to fix it. I mean, it was bad. You couldn't touch Jool's atmosphere without almost immediately exploding. Prior to 1.04, aerobraking was no big deal at Jool, I did it several times. So, it looks like they fixed it, which is good news. I haven't taken a spaceplane to Duna in quite some time, so my comments were for just regular, wingless craft. But it is kind of strange... a couple of missions ago, I aerobraked and used chutes on my first try on Duna. When I went back with a manned vessel, I had to try about 5 times before I could even slow down enough to use chutes safely, and that was only by thrusting to slow down.

Friction and heat have gotten a lot more unforgiving with the more recent versions of the game, so here are a few ideas to help you reenter an atmosphere without turning into a long streak of glowing ash. First, remember that different planets have vastly different atmospheres. You can re-enter Kerbin from an orbit of 80,000 meters by setting your periapsis at 30k, and you should be fine. However, if you try to do that on Eve, all you will remember is a flash of red and searing pain. In order of atmospheric thickness (roughly), it goes like this, from thinnest to thickest. The Planets 1. Duna. The air here is so thin that aerobraking is almost a waste of time. You will often not even be able to use parachutes, as you will impact the ground at high speed before you can deploy them. The atmosphere extends to 50,000 meters. 2. Laythe. The atmosphere here is very similar to Kerbin, although a bit thinner. Aerobraking and flying are definitely feasible here. The atmosphere extends to 50,000 meters, like Duna, but is much thicker. 3. Kerbin. Medium thickness. You should be pretty familiar with it. De-orbiting by setting your periapsis at 30k, from an orbit of 75k, should work fine. Coming in from Duna or Eve, you won't want to try anything below 60k. The atmosphere tops out at 70,000 meters. 4. Eve. Now we're getting serious. You have to be careful aerobraking here. If you're coming in from Kerbin, setting your periapsis below 80k will probably get you killed. The last time I aerobraked here, coming in from Kerbin and setting my periapsis at 80k, all of my landing struts evaporated within 10 seconds. You're best bet is to use a heat shield that covers the entire craft (not just the bottom). That is, for a 2.5m craft, you may want to use a 3.75m heat shield, if you have things like landing struts sticking out. Even from an orbit of 100k (10k above the edge of the atmosphere) you're not going to want to go below 70k, as the atmosphere gets very thick, very quick. Hey, you see what I did there? The atmosphere extends to 90,000 meters. 5. Jool. I wouldn't even try it. The last time I tried to aerobrake in Jool's atmosphere, I was vaporized no matter how high I tried to set my periapsis. This was in 1.04 though, things might have changed. That whole planet says "Go Away". The atmosphere extends to a whopping 200,000 meters. Technique Here are a few ways to manage heat load, beyond the obvious, like using heat shields. 1. Spaceplanes There are two good ways to reduce heat load in spaceplanes. A. Angle. The first is to angle your vessel up, so that it is not diving straight into the atmosphere. This increases drag, and may also allow you to skip off of the atmosphere to some degree. If you set the angle high enough (say, 45 degrees above prograde, at 60k on Kerbin) you may even start gaining altitude again without engines. As you get lower, the angle has to go down, or you risk having your wings fly off. So at 30k on Kerbin, I would use an angle more like 20 degrees. Angling reduces heat load, and may help you slow down if you are low enough. At lower altitudes it becomes a tradeoff between slowing down and not overheating. High friction means high drag, but strangely, lower heat. It goes like this: If you point straight toward prograde, you will slow down, but you will lose altitude quickly, and gain heat quickly. And of course the more altitude you lose, the thicker the air, so the greater the drag and the heat. If you angle up, you will lose altitude more slowly (or even gain altitude), and gain heat much more slowly. This just takes practice, to know when to pitch up and relieve the heat load and when to pitch back down to get more braking effect. Incidentally, the early Mercury/Gemini astronauts did exactly this to relieve heat load. B. Air brakes. These are moderately effective at slowing your craft down. They work best at lower altitudes and higher atmospheric densities. When using these, you can angle lower, pointing your ship more toward the front. A combination of air brakes and angling will give you the most options for dealing with heat. 2. Not-Spaceplanes You can't normally angle in a lumpy spacecraft without wings. In fact it doing so will probably start destroying things on the sides and top of your spacecraft. There is one technique I've discovered that helps, though: Spinning. That is, rotating around your roll axis. The default keys for this are Q and E. I've found that if you have things that are getting close to overheating, and especially if they are mounted on the sides of your ship and thus exposed to friction, if you start rolling the ship, the heat load is dissipated almost immediately. This probably won't work for things on the very bottom of your ship like your engine (assuming you are flying in retrograde), because spinning doesn't really change the angle that they fly into the atmosphere. However, I usually have something or other sticking out the side of the craft (radial mount parachutes, solar panels, Goo containers) that start overheating because they are exposed to the friction of the atmosphere. For whatever reason, spinning the craft (that is, rolling) usually relieves the heat load quickly. Unfortunately, once you stop spinning the heat load builds up again, but if you just keep spinning like that, although any passengers will probably eject their lunch, the craft should weather the friction until you can get down to a slower, safer speed. I hope this helps. Stay cool! Hehe... see, I said... cool... never mind.

I like it, although I came here to submit a tip about heat management, and this format doesn't really let you do that without waiting for someone to ask about it first.

The last time I used Eve for aerobraking (which was about an hour ago, as it turns out), I was coming in from Kerbin, and set my periapsis at 80k. I don't know what my speed was, but it was typical for an arrival from Kerbin. But even at 80k, all of my landing gear blew off within a few seconds. Luckily nothing else did, and after many loops, I managed to land. Eve has a seriously thick atmosphere, so you have to be really careful. 80k on Eve is probably something like 45k on Kerbin.

There's actually a trick to this. I'm not sure this works in 1.05, but it worked in 1.04. If you don't have enough power to transmit the whole experiment, do this: 1. Begin transmitting. You must have solar panels receiving sunlight (thus recharging batteries) for this to work. 2. Go to a higher time compression (5x, 10x, 50x, whatever). At some point, and I'm not sure why, you'll be transmitting at normal speed, but recharging at the compressed speed. At least I think that's what's happening. So the result is, the batteries are recharging faster than normal, and at some point, they're recharging faster than they can be depleted. So you won't run out of electricity while you're transmitting.

Regarding #3, MechJeb has something called "SmartRCS" that will adjust RCS thrust if your thrusters are not right on the COM. I don't know how fast it reacts... I usually use it just because either I burned fuel, or I just put the thrusters on wrong, but it can help in those situations, so maybe it will help you. I suspect it works best (or, at all) with two sets of thrusters, above and below the COM.

Actual world currencies that start with K: Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinean kina K PGK Toea 100 Laos Lao kip ₭ LAK Att 100 Czech Republic Czech koruna Kč CZK Haléř 100 Faroe Islands Faroese króna kr (none) Oyra 100 Iceland Icelandic króna kr ISK Eyrir 100 Sweden Swedish krona kr SEK Öre 100 Denmark Danish krone kr DKK Øre 100 Faroe Islands Danish krone kr DKK Øre 100 Norway Norwegian krone kr NOK Øre 100 Croatia Croatian kuna kn HRK Lipa 100 Malawi Malawian kwacha MK MWK Tambala 100 Zambia Zambian kwacha ZK ZMW Ngwee 100 Angola Angolan kwanza Kz AOA Cêntimo 100 Myanmar Burmese kyat Ks MMK Pya 100

I personally use MechJeb, because it addresses some of these shortcomings. I've said before that there needs to be some way to know when to transfer to another planet. If you're not using MechJeb, the only way to know when to burn is to consult some website that tells you the angles the planets need to be in, and with no way to measure angles in the game, it's a big guess as to whether you're in the right spot or not. I'm not sure if that's what you're referring to, but I agree it needs a better way to navigate to other planets.

I had a contract to test the "Twitch" engine at Duna. Unfortunately I don't know the duration of the contract, because it doesn't say in the Failed Contract description. However, the only thing it could be, as far as I know, is that I exceeded the duration. However, I'm only in Year 8 of my whole campaign. These contracts typically last for 10-20 years, and the absolute max that I could have accepted it is about 3 years ago. I just don't get it. It would be great if you could show us that duration in the Failed Contract area, or the reason the contract failed.

Well it's not really a bug, is it? It's just wrong information.

I don't get the Panther. The thrust starts to drop immediately, even before you've taken off, and just keeps going down. I don't understand it. Adding speed and/or altitude seems to do nothing, wet or dry, except cause thrust to decrease. ETA: OK, actually the thrust will slowly increase with speed, but decrease with altitude. EATA: OK, I think I've got it. It wants to be going as fast as possible at all times. You want to build up speed before you pitch up very much. It seems even more prone to this than the RAPIER.

FYI, I notice that we are here in 1.05, and this still hasn't been fixed.

I'd love to read this, but on my Android Chrome browser, the tags do not work, and it is just a jumbled mess.

But would turning off SAS then turning it back on fix that?

It's been a year and a half since I posted this, and I honestly can't even remember what happened with it. Although this was just before I retreated to my closet and sucked my thumb for two weeks.

Well, most of it is a light blue actually... I don't know, maybe you can adjust your monitor. Most web pages are white.

I'm not saying they're programmed to go out of control or crash at high speed into the ground. But... I'm not saying they're not.

Great to see you here, Shokai. Just a bit of beginner's advice: DO NOT BOARD THE ROCKETS.

The font is a different size? To me, if anything, it all looks bigger. It's more spaced out too.

Update: I checked my game cache in Steam, and I had 3 files that failed to validate. I will report any further developments. Rocketblam Out.

I just tried this with another ship (which I sent after the first one ran out of fuel) and it did the same exact thing. I was maneuvering around, and it started spinning. If I turn off SAS or do nothing, it just spins faster and faster.

If that were the case, it would have manifested itself long before I was landing. Anyway, it's only 1 engine. I thought I might be running out of electricity, but it was nearly full.