RocketBlam

Still not fixed. Just crashed into Pol AGAIN.

I already edited the OP to show that even with all liquid fuel, it's still not as good.

Here is the same rocket with either an LV-N or a LV-909 on the transfer stage. As you can see, the LV-909 has a lot higher D/V (30% more) than the LV-N. I assume this rocket is big and heavy enough that the added weight of the LV-N does not completely reverse its benefits. Is this a MechJeb reporting problem? Because the LV-N seems essentially useless as it is. In fact worse than useless - counterproductive. ETA: I forgot that the LV-N doesn't use oxidizer any more, so replaced the tanks with just liquid fuel tanks, and it's STILL not as efficient.

That's an ingenious solution though... It basically works as a heat sink, which is surprising.

Putting fins that high up on the rocket won't likely work. In fact I doubt it would have worked in the old aerodynamics. And they probably have limited usefulness anyway given how high you'll be when you stage. I had a huge amount of trouble trying to put winged craft on top of a rocket, even in 9.0. They were essentially unlaunchable.

I just got a similar mission, similar in difficulty anyway. I didn't misunderstand it, its just... Well, it was a mission to retrieve a Kerbal from solar orbit. "Oh, that's cool, sounds like kind of a challenge, its something different!" So I figure he's somewhere near Kerbin. No, he's out by JOOL. And I got this mission before I had even landed on the Mun I think. Anyway, it gets much worse. This guy is in a RETROGRADE solar orbit. Orbiting the opposite direction of the planets. What?!? I still haven't launched the mission... I don't even have access to the kind of parts I am going to need to put a ship with something like 10k d/v into HKO. - - - Updated - - - This is exactly it. I tried pushing it first, but the claw is so wobbly that it was impossible to control. Heck, it was hard to control pulling it. That's what the infernal robotics parts were for, BTW. I was trying to stabilize the claw by pushing against the asteroid with 4 pistons. Didn't work. The pistons did not touch the asteroid surface, they just went right through. A limitation of the physics engine I guess.

I can start my gravity turns at sea level if I want to. The rocket now spins out of control if you try to do a 45 degree turn going 1000 miles an hour. That's the way it should be. Well, actually the craft should experience RUD, but at least now it works better.

I like the new aerodynamics. Spamming air intakes was so cheesy. I just designed an SSTO that is far from ideal (haven't unlocked the hybrid engine or anything above the turbojet, had to use two turbos and two lt-v45s), but I still managed to barely make it to orbit. Its different now, but better. Sorry you got so attached to a beta version of the game.

I just created an SSTO that can (barely) make a 71k orbit, with fuel enough to de-orbit. And I don't even think it's optimal since it uses two turbojets and two LV-T45's. It doesn't seem that much harder than it was in .90. This is with two air intakes for two engines. Have they gotten rid of air intake spam? I hope so... it was so cheesy.

Since the update, the vehicle tends to tip over an excessive amount when hitting 7K altitude - often so far that it becomes unrecoverable. Not sure why this is. Also, let me add that I've been using this for a long time, and wouldn't play without it, but... the main MJ slide-out panel is not in a good place. It covers up most of the flight information when it's out. I know this has been brought up before... many times... and I just don't get why it has to be right there, where it is usually in the way. Can't you at least move it down about 40 pixels?

ETA: I think it is an overheating problem. I relaunched after redesigning the craft, moving the command module inside the storage bay. Also, when launching, I didn't accelerate as fast as before. It made it into orbit. I suspect it had overheated, but if this is the case, then it should have stopped heating up well before hitting 66km.

Whew, well I was just going to leave the ship in orbit until something else came along I could use it for. Luckily there's another Kerbal needing rescue around Duna, which is definitely doable with this vessel. - - - Updated - - - This seems to be the best way to do it (I edited the OP to reflect this). But it's still going to take something like 9k DV from HKO to get to him and get him on board. Then, I'm still in a retro orbit and will have to somehow nail the return coming into Kerbin going the wrong way.

He's out near Jool, but it doesn't look like his orbit intersects Jools, and if it does, it is probably something like every 10,000 years.

I accepted a "Kerbal Rescue" mission, for a Kerbal that was orbiting the sun. "Sounds a little more challenging, I'll give it a try!" I said. So I get a ship up into Kerbin orbit and realize the target is in a retrograde orbit - that is, he is going the opposite direction of all the planets. Wow. I don't know how I'm going to manage this. To just cancel out my initial orbital direction (that is, head straight for the sun) I need 9k DV from high Kerbin orbit. So I will need even more than that to match the target's orbit. So, something like 21,000 DV just to catch the target, plus about 5k DV to get into HKO. ETA: I just tried something else. If I intercept the target at his orbit, and then turn around and match his velocity, I can get to him with about 9k DV from HKO. Better, but still a huge deal.

I'm trying to launch a rescue mission. I do this by putting an unmanned capsule under a control module, so I can launch it unmanned. In this case, every time I hit 66km, one or the other just explodes for no apparent reason. Whether I am under power or not, when it hits 66km, one of them explodes, usually the control module (the command pod only exploded once). The only mod I have installed is MechJeb, and it explodes whether Ascent Guidance is running or not. There is no apparent reason for this... I've even turned off all the SAS/torque wheels on the vessel. Strangely enough, after the control module explodes, I still have full control of the vessel, despite the fact that the command pod is unmanned. I think they might have overheated on ascent, somehow, although not sure why they would wait until 66m to overheat. I launched again with MechJeb Ascent Guidance, and noticed that MJ's "Limit to Terminal Velocity" trigger was going off at really low velocities for the altitude. I was at 21km, only going 400 m/s and it was slowing the engines down. Have the aerodynamics changed that much?

As I understand it, having worked with Unity a bit, switching to Unity 5 could be a huge project. A lot of the way things are coded in Unity 4 is different than Unity 5, and the change could end up taking months.

Ah, ok, well that's cool. As long as you recognize that just sticking more and more intakes on the aircraft until it does what you want isn't exactly engineering genius, then we are agreed.

I hate to be that guy, but... the reason this craft works is because you spammed 8 air intakes for one jet engine, Right? I mean, it's a nice, aesthetic design, and I like how you hid the mechanicals, but without 8 air intakes for one jet, it would barely be able to make Kerbin orbit, if even that.

If they would just call it the name they gave the part, that would be good enough for me. "Have a Mobile Processing Lab at the outpost." There. Done. A picture would be nice, but just the right name would be good enough for me.

Yeah, if you are experienced enough to build that kind of a plane, with really high lift, I guess it might take off. Is that what we can expect new users to build? Before they have even upgraded the runway? Anyway, I'm saying I agree with the OP. That runway is essentially unusable at the tech level you first try to use it. I always upgrade it before I even try to take off with anything. I understand that the designers were thinking "how to we make a runway less.... technological?" But the reality is, before it's upgraded, it is useless for almost any low-tech aircraft, which is not the case with the VAB/Launch pad.

I've got a mission to land a base on the Mun. The mission states that I must include a "Research Lab." I must confess, I have no idea what a "Research Lab" is supposed to be. At first I thought it must the the SC-9001 Science Jr., because in its description, it calls it a "self-contained laboratory." But then I thought it must be the Mobile Processing Lab. But that's not called a "Research Lab" either. Honestly, I have no idea what this is supposed to be. I wish they would be more accurate about what I am supposed to include here.

I have a mission to land on Pol, but finding it impossible (although I've landed there in other saves). I get to a few hundred meters above the surface and the ship just explodes. It says it collided with Pol, but it was well above the surface. It doesn't matter how fast going, and it doesn't matter where I land, so I don't think it's some kind of phantom terrain issue.

This. Maybe you could put a link to a guide in the OP? - - - Updated - - - What if Scansat isn't installed?

It's a single player game. As long as its on your hard drive, it need never die. That being said, I suspect that even in 5 years, the game will have a solid following. And by then we'll probably have KSP2: Return of the Jebi.

Well, I'm not sure that's what it was, but it may have been. had two Communotrons on a satellite (it was actually two satellites before deploying one). I had several solar panels and from checking them, they seemed to be providing more than .26 energy flow when taken together. But it seems to work now. My problem NOW is, I put a satellite constellation into orbit (just three ATM), and launched another vessel, and it never used the constellation, even though they were in LOS. Each satellite in the constellation has a deployed Communotron 16 on it, and electricity. The launch ship was able to contact ground stations (intermittently) and I could see that the constellation was also in contact with the stations, but the ship never used the constellation to communicate. If it was out of LOS from a ground station, but within LOS of another satellite, it still lost communication. ETA: The relay constellation is at about 6 million meters. This may be out of range for the Comm16's (after checking the stats on your site) but they work at that altitude when controlling the relay satellites. ETA2: I don't know how I could possibly do a Mun mission with this mod, unless I had IR installed. How would I keep the long-range dish antennas pointed at Kerbal while doing all the maneuvering needed to enter Mun Orbit, let alone to land on the Mun?