Bedwyr

Thank you so much!

Ok, ok. emulating a gravity turn. That better? How do you execute a true turn for a given orbital altitude? I never really give the rocket its head. Usually I'm either resisting the turn so I can delay or I'm nudging the attitude further down to accelerate the horizontal speed changes. I don't think that's too far out of the definition of a guided gravity turn, no?

I apologize, but do you mind too terribly if I piggyback with a related question? It might help support your question too. Something just struck me about realism. For the new aerodynamics and the old FAR, does the Whitcomb area rule apply for this level of simulation?

I'm using my experience with FAR as sufficiently analogous to the new aerodynamics. One inline shouldn't be too difficult. I've done that lots of times with FAR. You just have to be really careful how you tweak the CG to make sure you have a stable lander. As for three, I recall Manley doing lots of missions with three mounted radially with FAR installed. There's definitely a tradeoff now that you didn't have before. The atmosphere acts as a much thinner one now, so the dV requirements for a single streamlined stack is reduced, but you get really penalized for not streamlining. So if your dV is poor, what about streamlining the outboard components with cones or fairings? You've still got a large cross section, but you should be able to manage better. Just don't expect to use ye olde birthday cake asparagus stages anymore. It's a different, higher fidelity world now.

Don't sweat it. It's the internet and typing is cheap. Most folks are enjoying it and some of the criticism isn't actually negative, it's constructive so Squad can find and fix the problems.

I can dig that.

Generally in response to the barn doubters, there's all kinds of equipment and all kinds of facilities. Sometimes old buildings and barns get used to do really cool things. An anecdote: I was browsing a NASA display that had a drone trainer. Not a predator or shadow or global hawk. It was a monokote covered balsawood airplane with some decent avionics inside built to be a trainer for people who would fly the Ikhana (predator) later: A distinguished Israeli engineer came up and proceeded to diss the airplane saying loudly that it was beneath NASA to use (said with almost a sneer) "hobbyist" materials. I had to privately roll my eyes at that because he didn't read the display or bothered to understand what the purpose of the vehicle was. I saw a lot of people turn red embarrassed at this gentleman's outbursts and confusion. So my point is (generally to everyone), don't get so hung up on barns. In real life not everything need look like fancy concrete hangars and spacey control centers. Sometimes really awesome stuff happens inside a building simple enough to get the job done.

Corollary then: Hire most of the astrokerbonauts you want *before* going on your rescue mission as you'll escape increased marginal costs. But only if your budget has room for it.

I remember being 9 and I'd almost certainly find PDP a larf a minute. In fact, these were a little bit before my time but: these guys aren't all that different from what PewDiePie does.

Turn much earlier and keep your attitude aligned much more closely with your prograde vector indicator. Make small control inputs. Don't pitch by >5-10 degrees suddenly. A good rule of thumb is to make your attitude changes so that they touch the edge of the prograde ring but do not go outside it too much.

The more the merrier. I welcome anyone. It's not an exclusive club limited to only the space nerds (Excelsior!... ahem). And that many more people knowing even just a tidbit more about how orbital motion works is a delight.

Observed the same behavior on a couple tests. Capsule points correctly retrograde and stabilizes incorrectly at an angle with the heat shield, causing the capsule to burn up. This may be intended behavior, but it is also a bug.

Ah, good. Triple would be marvelous, but I'm happy with an option for two. Er, feature request: petal quad interstage separation?

Thank you. I also see you're a fan of Stardock, no? (or a Linux equivalent now that I see you're using Libre.)

No, thank *you* for your service and efforts to make rendezvous much less aggravating.

Oh certainly. But it resets its position and becomes one more setup task before launch. You know how it goes.

Oh that would be delightful news. I'm one of the five people who play KSP on the large screen television at home and resizing the flight UI causes the old toolbar to interfere with the time warp controls.

I think you did. I wasn't aware of Blizzy before. It looks like both mods have support for it; I'll look into it.

I could use a few clarifications. - I don't understand the function of Module Manager. It seems like it is supposed to be entirely transparent to me as a user. Can/should I have 2.2.1 running as well as 2.1.5 as the docking mod appears to use? - Does MM have anything to do with toolbars? - Some mods seem to be running great on new toolbars that look like some kind of UI API functionality provided by squad since 0.24. Is that correct? - Other mods such as Docking and Kerbal alarm clock appear to not be updated and don't use this functionality. Is that correct? - What, then, is causing the button for Docking to free float on the screen during every launch? Is there a way I can resolve this? - Similar issue with Alarm Clock, but the button is immobile and conceals UI elements because I run the game with a larger in flight UI. Same issue or should I go ahead and post over in the Alarm thread? Thanks for your help.

Yes, there are a few points to make. 1: I believe Randall worked at Langley which focuses on aeronautics. 2: Langley's work is important and should be supported just as space exploration should be supported. 3: lots of people work at NASA are subject matter experts and aren't all rocket scientists or deal with orbital guidance. Some are biologists too! 4: The point of the cartoon is hardly 'ha! I learned more from Kerbal than...' The point is more 'isn't it great to have a tool that helps us more intuitively understand... even if I've done this stuff you'd assume makes me an automatic expert on...' There's a lot of stuff out there to know. Heck. You could be a mechanical engineer working on a rocket program and not know the first thing about orbital flight. But by gum you know your metal alloy stresses in huge <edit>turboPUMP</edit> tossing massive quantities of fuel through at very high speeds.

I tried out the KSO this evening and want to compliment the Mod developers. Thank you for spending so much of your time doing this! It's a brilliant ship and I love flying it. I was curious whether I could get a reasonably stable flight using Mechjeb and it appears to work smoothly given a few caveats I observed: - Disable roll control on all flying surfaces for liftoff. - Only operate ascent control after immediate liftoff (100m or so) - Disable ascent control well before final circularization burn. I think it gets confused by the nozzle trim and starts chasing a rapidly pitching maneuver reticle with 50+ d-V left to go. Again thank you!

Thanks. I actually saw that the station was becoming a hot mess anyhow so I got a clean install of KSP and started over with a new station.

Could someone clarify what step 3 means? What "vessel" am I looking for once I set "control-from-here" on the space-station's docking port? What does "VESSEL-tag" mean? I'm using Notepad++ to search and it's not clear which exactly what Mr. kalizec is referring to. (Note, I likewise have a "Docked (same vessel)" indication for a refueling ship that I left attached between play sessions. Pictures available if need be. Thanks.