AlexinTokyo

Did you 'arm' the claw through its right-click menu?

The engines produce power through the 'Alternator' module, which doesn't trigger the contracts (otherwise they would appear as soon as the Stayputnik was unlocked, as the LV-T30 has one), and doesn't count towards that condition. The issue is that the RTGs should fulfill the requirements, but the launch clamps shouldn't. It could be fixed by changing the launch clamps to use a new 'ACGenerator' (or whatever) module that was otherwise identical to the 'Generator' that they currently use.

You cannot use a body's own gravity to capture into orbit around that body. Entering a body's SoI from in front (in respect of its orbital direction) will slow you down relative to that body's parent when you leave the SoI. The exact amount will depend on the exact trajectory and the mass of the secondary body. In this way, you can use a pass around the Mun to shed some of your interplanetary velocity on returning to Kerbin (not much, as the Mun is too light), but you can't use Kerbin's gravity to get captured (short, of course, of a direct impact trajectory).

'Power' in the contract requirements means 'a power source', not 'a repository of stored power'. I agree that the wording is not sufficiently clear. To complete the satellite contracts you must have either solar panels or RTGs on the probe, as well as batteries. Unfortunately, the launch clamps contain the same 'generator' module as the RTGs, so if you unlock launch clamps the contract generator thinks you have a power source and starts throwing out satellite contracts. Ninjad: What they said.

That certainly should be completing, as far as I can see. Does exiting and restarting the game help? Do you have any mods? I have to say that it looks like you've hit a bug, though. Next step is to try a clean reinstall of the game, unfortunately.

Can you post a screenshot of your test ship on the launchpad, with the contract window open and the problem contract visible?

I can understand using twitter for teasers and quick, off-the-cuff announcements that don't (necessarily) merit the weight of a full forum post. Maybe the solution is a thread in "Announcements" or "The Daily Kerbal" that gets a post added to it when a Kerbal-related tweet is made. Other than that, it takes no less time or effort to write a Reddit (or wherever) piece than it does to post here, so it should be posted here. At the absolute minimum, if it just has to be posted on Reddit first, it should be immediately followed up here with either a copy-paste (better IMHO, 'cause Reddit makes my eyes bleed) or a link. Again, there could be a dedicated thread for this, if they don't want to clutter up the forums with lots of little threads.

"Decouple node" is the option you need. Basically, as far as I understand, docking ports which are connected in the VAB (rather than in-flight docking) are actually attached as decouplers, not docking nodes. I don't know if this makes any difference to anything at all, but you have to 'decouple' instead of 'undock'.

I don't use MechJeb, so I can't give you any advice specifically related to that function, but... Can you describe your initial conditions? What is your pre-departure orbit (AP/PE Height)? What TWR and ÃŽâ€v does your ship have (you can get this info from a MechJeb panel, I think). What burn (duration) does MJ come up with for you, and what is the situation after you finish the burn? My best guess (emphasis, it's a complete guess) is that you're starting a long (low-TWR) burn from a low orbit. This can cause your burn to start so much before the node, that you're actually burning down into the atmosphere, which can cost you a lot of effective ÃŽâ€v. If this is the case, then you can try a) starting in a higher orbit, redesigning your ship with a higher TWR, or c) splitting the burn into a series of more manageable burns (periapsis kicking, along the lines of what the Mangalyaan did).

I don't think there's any way to turn off the node display in the stock game. However, since only open nodes are displayed, a workaround may be to slap a small, single-node part on the node (RCS thruster block, Communitron 16, etc.) and then remove it when you've done the fine work. Obviously this won't work if it's the part your trying to attach whose node is stuffing you about. Alternatively, the Editor Extensions mod may have a setting to allow this, but I haven't used it so I can't be sure.

Essentially, if you stop controlling the launched craft (go to the KSC scene, switch to another ship, dock [i think], etc.), then the option is removed. I could very well be wrong, but I didn't think quicksaving disabled revert; can anyone check this (at work, so no KSP ).

Correct. For unfocused, on-rails craft, a few checks are made. One is sphere-of-influence - ships can change SoI in the background and the orbits are recalculated in the new SoI. This is why, at high warps, a ship's orbit after SoI cahnge can be very different from the predicted trajectory before the change. Another is a deletion check - if the ship has a negative altitude on any body (i.e. sub-surface) or is in atmosphere with an atmospheric pressure greater than 1% of the datum (or sea level) pressure for that body (this translates to about 23 km on Kerbin) is deleted, as it is deemed to have crashed and been destroyed. I can't think of any other checks that are made. The upshot is that the number of ships may have a performance cost (those checks aren't free), but the number of parts does not, for unloaded (on-rails) ships.

Could you give more detail about what is going wrong? Please describe your initial (parking) orbit around Kerbin, and the steps you are following to try to get to the Mun. (Note, I'm assuming you meant the stock KSP Mun, not the RSS Moon.) In general, if you're in a low Kerbin orbit of between about 70 and 100 km, you'll need to burn prograde for about 860 m/s of ÃŽâ€v. You will need to time the burn so that the Mun is about 90° in front of your position when you burn (i.e. if you're at 6 o'clock relative to Kerbin, the Mun should be at about 3 o'clock. If you set this up with a maneuver node, you should see the trajectory intercept the Mun's orbit and be marked with 'Mun Encounter'. Let me know if you need any more detail ETA: This should probably be posted in the 'Gameplay Questions and Tutorials' subforum, rather than 'General KSP Discussion'. I'm sure a friendly mod will be along soon to move it.

Since you mention that it's an external fuel tank, I assume there's no engine attached directly. In that case, running 1 fuel line from each tank in the external assembly to the main body (ensure they all terminate on the same part) should cause them all to drain evenly.

Can you show us screenshots of the following: 1) The current situation of the outpost, with the appropriate contract visible in the contract pane, and 2) The same ship (launch a new copy) on the launchpad, with the appropriate contract visible in the contract pane? I suspect there's something you may have overlooked, but I wouldn't want to hazard a guess without more info.

IIRC, from pre- and just-post-release devnotes/posts, you can rebuild destroyed buildings at a lower tier than they were before destruction. Not sure if there's another way.

That is seriously impressive. Well done you. Have some rep and a beverage of your choice.

Any danger of sneaking these into stock 1.0 as part of the Karbonite integration?

I'd agree with Vahal that scanning Jool is pretty pointless. There are no biomes, and there's no surface to record altimetry data about. That said, you may be able to get the 'Analyse Data' science from there; not sure. Also, remember that the SAR scanner for hi-resolution altimetry and the multispectral scanner for biomes and anomalies have different altitude requirements, so if you want both you may need to plan two satellites per body.

To be more specific, you can't target the body you're orbiting, or its parent (or grandparent, etc). So you can't target Kerbin while in the Mun's SoI either. Nor can you target the sun while orbiting Kerbin. You can target other children of the same parent, so you could target Kerbin while orbiting the sun, or any of the other planets or their moons, and you can target Minmus while orbiting the Mun (or vice versa).

Correct on both counts. Dreaded bit rot? Seems as likely as any other explanation at this point.Glad you got it sorted.

I'm not sure what you're asking, Sigma. If you're referring to the Mars orbital velocity calculations I did, they're all using Martian values with the assumption that the Martian atmosphere is negligible at the summit of Olympus Mons (I believe this is a safe assumption, at least to a first-degree approximation, but I'm not an areologist). If you're referring to the muzzle velocities, they were copied directly from the values given on the linked pages. For the tank gun, I assume this is at normal atmospheric pressure, and for the light-gas gun at it's normal operating pressure, whatever that is. These would presumably increase somewhat in a hard vacuum, but I can't find any links to indicate what effect air pressure / density has on muzzle velocity (plenty on ballistic effects after firing, but not on muzzle velocity).

Echoing wibou here, but AFAIK there's no way to arm and attach the klaw in the VAB/SPH. If the reason you were thinking of the klaw was so that you don't need to add a part to the rover itself (like a clamp-o-tron), then please be aware that you can attach docking ports directly to non-docking-ports, and they will be able to decouple as normal. Of course, they won't be able to re-dock unless the rover also has a docking port.

Have you been editing your settings file at all? The CONIC_PATCH_LIMIT setting in settings.cfg controls how many patches are displayed. It looks from the image that this has been set to 2 (I think the default is 3, which would show your trajectory after Munar escape). There are mods which change this value, but as you don't use mods, I cant think why it might have changed (unless you changed it?).

Yes, that's correct. Custom action groups 1~9 correspond to the (main keyboard only, not keypad) numbers 1~9 and group 10 corresponds to 0. Note that you can change the keys assigned to each custom group through the key binding settings menu if you really want to