undercoveryankee

That's in TweakableEverything. Seems like an obvious thing to get into stock someday, but that's life.

If your aircraft is overstable, reduce the distance between the center of lift and the center of mass. Since the CoL varies with Mach number (at least in FAR; I haven't actually learned stock aerodynamics) and the CoM varies with fuel use, you can be as close as you can get in the hangar and still overstable in reentry condition. Try pumping fuel toward the rear of the aircraft. More pitch authority can also help to push a stable plane into an attitude it would rather not stay in.

Hence my rule: All landers have separate descent and ascent stages. If the descent stage runs out of fuel, abort to orbit.

With RT2 and a stock experiment, if the file is large or transmission is delayed due to power, I sometimes see the "Received data. Science added." message partway through the transmission. It appears that when that happens, the experiment's multiplier updates at that point and I get reduced science for the remaining packets. If that happens to a transmission of impact data, there may be a sequence of events where Interstellar interprets the post-update packets as an attempt to retransmit the same impact and zeros out the science, as ctbram reported.

Don't know how to link to the post on mobile, but it's dated February 10. Download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xlisczkkrb58p7a/6S%20Expansion.zip

There's an MM file with corrected node sizes a few pages back: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/43839-0-23-5-KSP-Interstellar-%28Toolbar-Integration-New-Models-New-Tech%29-Version-0-11?p=1093576&viewfull=1#post1093576

From my reading of the code, the data size is 2.5 Mits per point of science. Added to the wiki.

Thickness adjustment was added only in the last version or two of PWings. If the example craft were created with a version of PWings before the thickness controls were added, that might cause them to load with zero thickness instead of default thickness.

Since 1.0, only the four fully editable chutes have appeared in the tech tree. You can use those to duplicate the functionality of the other parts. The other parts are still present in GameData/RealChute/Legacy Parts/ so you can fly ships that were launched with pre-1.0 RealChutes, but they are set not to appear in the VAB. It shouldn't refuse to load .craft files that use the legacy parts just because they don't appear in the menu. If it is, you may have inadvertently installed RealChute at the wrong path. The RealChute/ folder that contains Legacy Parts/, Materials/, Plugins/, RealChute_Settings.cfg and Sounds/ should be directly under your top-level GameData/.

Is there any way for one part to act as both a reactor and a thermal nozzle? I tried to convert the LV-N to act like an Interstellar thermal rocket by adding modules FNNozzleController and FNNuclearReactor to it. It seems to work as a nuclear reactor, but it won't run as an engine because "no reactor attached."

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zp722uknlo808zf/Duna-Ike%20landers.craft is a reduced-mods version of the lander package I posted a picture of. It should require only the mods I mentioned in the post with the picture.

Per http://kerbalalarmclock.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Version%20History , 2.7.0.0 is best for 0.23.

0.23.5 included an update to the Unity DLLs, so most plugins have had to be recompiled even if the source code would be compatible. If you're seeing problems, then you probably need a version that was compiled for 0.23. Your log shows KAC attempting to access the "Earth days/Kerbin days" setting that was added in 0.23.5. It may just not have backward-compatibility code to support that setting not existing.

I just remembered a few more mod parts that are in my .craft file but not really part of the structure of the Duna lander. KER, MechJeb, RemoteTech2 antenna on the tug, Interstellar radiators and magnetometer on the Ike lander, and one of the experiments I'm carrying is from the BioMass pack. Possibly TAC Life Support as well. I'll make a "public" version of the .craft with those non-critical mods removed and share it this evening or tomorrow. Mission profile: I built separate single-use landers for Duna and Ike. The assembly was built in orbit with Extraplanetary Launchpads, and the tug stage between the two landers took them from the construction station to the interplanetary ship. The interplanetary transfer ship will park in low Duna orbit and both landers will operate from there. The Duna lander deorbits from low Duna orbit, makes a few burns during the descent to minimize entry heating, and deploys drogues around 10km. Main chutes are armed at drogue deployment. Terminal velocity under chutes is around 10 m/s. Final burn just before touchdown to land at 5 m/s or less. Should be enough fuel in the descent stage to cut chutes and extend powered flight if you need to move off a steep slope, but you'll want to add an action group to cut all chutes together. Don't forget to hit the Infernal Robotics controls as part of extending the landing gear. Science pods are for upper atmosphere, lower atmosphere, and landed. They are all on the descent stage, so don't forget to collect the data while you're on EVA. The Ike lander includes a transfer stage to get it from low Duna orbit to low Ike orbit and to return the ascent stage to low Duna orbit afterward. Science for Ike high and near space located on the transfer stage. Science for Ike landed is on the descent stage.

If you had the April 1st build you would know it.

I just happened to be ferrying mine to the transfer ship today, and I got a picture. This has landed and returned to orbit in pre-expedition "simulation" tests. This is a two-stage single-use lander. The radially-mounted science pods are on the descent stage. Note nose cones in the direction of travel, and odd-shaped science parts on the trailing surface. Nose docking port would be a shielded port, but I needed to build it docked to the delivery tug and Ike lander as shown. Building a shielded port open requires TweakableEverything or similar, which I don't have on this install. If I needed a reusable lander, I would probably use basically the same shape, but cover the upper ends of the science pods with a 6S fairing and another nose cone. Mod parts: 6S service compartments (one in the ascent stage for batteries and RCS tanks, more if I needed to cover sensors for return to orbit); B9 (Atlas low-profile engine, aerodynamic-looking RCS block), RealChute, Infernal Robotics. Edit: More mod parts: The decoupler is Deadly Reentry. Fits nicely over another Atlas engine. Some KW Rocketry fuel tanks are visible, but vehicle function doesn't depend on the tanks being KW.

The list of possible biomes should probably be static so as not to confuse the Science Archives, but I don't think it would hurt the stock game to switch to a map with different boundaries. SCANSat might be less than happy with you, though.

Since stock KSP doesn't let you choose whether your fuel is storable or cryogenic, it's probably better to keep all of the stock fuels storable and all of the stock chemical engines on one curve and let Real Fuels take care of simulating that wrinkle.

The "drag" value of a stock parachute is a drag coefficient. Since stock aerodynamics uses mass as a proxy for area, the drag force from a parachute already goes as (drag coefficient * mass), so a heavier parachute with the same Cd produces proportionally more drag force.

FAR, DRE, TAC, RT2. I think Interstellar also counts as hard mode in some respects (waste heat, radiation effects are planned).

0.23.5 adds a second stock folder: GameData/NASAMission/. That's where all of the new parts live. If you mistook NASAMission/ for a mod and deleted it, that would cause exactly what you're seeing. Solution: Reinstall KSP if you don't have a backup.

I put together a ModuleManager config to FAR-ify the winglets. If that interests you, you can grab it at http://www.filedropper.com/novapunchwingletsfar .

Out of the box, NovaPunch ships a few fins that use the stock Winglet module. Nobody has published FAR data for these parts yet, so I decided to roll my own. Measurements were determined by eyeball comparison to the stated dimensions of NovaPunch fuel tanks. License: CC0 (no restrictions). Link to the license in the file. DOWNLOAD: http://www.filedropper.com/novapunchwingletsfar Usage: Uses ModuleManager. Save anywhere under GameData/.

I have one in Kerbin-synchronous orbit that says it's generating something in the range of 0.9 science/day. I've never actually seen it produce science. Are there any common gotchas or known mod conflicts to check for that would keep it from working? (This save is still on KSP 0.23 and Interstellar 0.10.3 because Infernal Robotics.)

For thermal rockets, core temperature determines Isp, and thermal power determines thrust by determining how much propellant you can heat. Because of the way kinetic energy and momentum are related, a fixed amount of thermal power actually gives you more thrust when your Isp is lower. The wiki isn't as clear about the formulas for thermal turbojets, but it seems obvious that their thrust would be limited by available wattage in the same way. Now, looking at the reactor stats on the wiki, the upgraded 3.75m fusion reactor is about 10 GW more power than the upgraded antimatter initiated reactor. The higher wattage and lower core temp will give you more thrust, although the lower temperature will cost you some Isp.