cantab

The following seems to work for me: Tanks 2, 3, and 4 feed 1 Tank 1 feeds the lower engines and tank 5. Tank 5 feeds 6, 7, and 8. The fuel drain is slightly different to your plan but the overall result is the same. Tanks 2, 3, and 4 all drain first, then tank 1. When tank 1 empties the lower engines flameout, with all the upper tanks still full.

Assuming I don't have any mods altering the behaviour (and I don't believe I do), this only applies to when you're flying the vessel. In the Tracking Station you can rename anything. Just enable showing debris, select the piece in question from the list, click the i icon on the right, then click the name and the rename dialogue will show up.

More SCIENCE! So I did some more runs using a similar setup, with the slight tweak that I dumped fuel (using TAC Fuel Balancer) to change the "oil rig" masses. In addition to the FL-T800, I also tested the FL-T400 and the BACC. As ever, my "raw data" (ie screenshots) are in the Flickr album. Firstly, graphing the new data as we graphed the previous set, we back up our previous hypothesis: For a given part the relation between percentage underwater and mass on the part is linear, and extrapolates back to around 50% at zero mass. Note that I did remove an outlier from each of the FL-T400 and BACC data sets, in both cases the lowest mass value. Float Test 3 Graph 1 by cantab314, on Flickr Secondly, I plotted the absolute volume displaced vs the mass, on a per tank basis (so dividing both quantities by 4 for these tests). The volume displaced was calculated from the diameter and length of the tanks, assuming they are cylinders. Float Test 3, Graph 2 by cantab314, on Flickr The key result here is that the lines do not all have the same gradient. This means that the amount of water a given mass displaces in KSP depends on the part doing the displacing. A third graph instead plots only the excess volume displaced over and above the 50% that's always underwater, in this case leaving the outliers in. The different gradients between the three parts tested are more striking. https://flic.kr/p/obw3H2 In conclusion, whatever KSP is doing, it's very unlike physically correct buoyancy and I still haven't got to the bottom of it. I'm not sure what to investigate next. But I'm considering the following scenario: If a part is completely submerged, does its buoyancy then stay constant as its depth increases? It also occurs to me that a precision altimeter mod would be highly useful. Then I could read off the height of the probe core above the water directly, rather than having to measure screenshots. VOID doesn't seem to do it, the altitude it reports is not that of the command pod (I suspect it is instead that of the CoM).

Hyperedit just lets you change about anything, and it's reasonably well-known. However, while it's reasonably easy to use it to set up launches from planets with solid surfaces, trying to do a takeoff from the Sun or Jool is always going to cause trouble. As you've discovered, unless you immediately hit the gas you'll just fall, there's nothing to support you.

Provided it hasn't already been terminated by the autocleanup (the fate that befell my Mun lander's descent stage), you may be able to redesignate it as a ship by renaming it in the tracking station. Though I don't guarantee that actually protects it from the autocleanup.

The Vehicle Assembly Building is for building vehicles, like cars and trucks. To make spaceships you want the Spaceplane Hangar.

I guess generally speaking there's not much call for them, apart from the jetrocket designs. Staging is simple enough to understand, enables the same size rocket to launch a bigger payload, and makes it feel more like a real rocket.

Indeed, in the stock game your only option is to manually taxi. You could build on a detachable tug with rover wheels if you don't want to waste jet fuel. And an Immelman doesn't require TWR>1, because you do just convert your airspeed into altitude in the half-loop. A glider could do one.

Space junk can survive re-entry and hit the ground, and even a smashed-to-hell spy satellite will still be pored over by whoever has it.Back on topic, I think people are in error in interpreting the "Big Dumb Booster" as being unreliable. A well-designed BDB should be very reliable, by virtue of being a simple design that's not pushing the limits of engineering and that once worked out is more-or-less stuck with. The drawback, I think, comes from the point of view of the desire for national progress. Because a BDB isn't pushing the limits of engineering, its development won't expand those limits much. Long-term, more sophisticated launchers may come to overtake the BDB for cost-effectiveness.

Hattivat has it. Balloons and airships, that's the way to go. Near-normal gravity to walk around in too.

I won't respect his authoritah! The next poster gets caught between a rock and the deep blue sea.

Indeed. Good luck, Moho's probably the hardest body in the game to enter orbit around.

Sure. As said, calculating the transfer duration is relatively simple. I've a feeling calculating the delta-V isn't that hard either, at least for circular orbits of matching inclinations.Delta-V maps vary in style a bit, but many do look somewhat like tube maps with numeric labels. It's a straightforward visual way to present the information.

Well, I may as well go with the blindingly obvious and guess: A spaceplane?

Landing on Minmus by EVA and safely returning to the orbiter, without any mods to help. It's been a while since I did it, but I still rate it as one of my finest achievements.

I'm a Timelord and have two hearts. As I perform the transfer burn to get a Moho intercept (from which I can gravity assist my way back to my TARDIS), my Mainsail's exhaust does not miss the next poster.

Thankfully, it's broken and does nothing. Next poster is in the incinerator in Toy Story 3, being dragged down by an army of Lotso Hugging Bears.

Well, my thoughts: Team 1: A really great concept, possibly the best, but I think the execution could have been a shade better. For example, could the claws not have been set on action groups so there's no need to open the dialog boxes? Team 2: I didn't "get" this at first, but liked it better on a second watching. The robot is a neat piece of work, and getting the kick is some SERIOUSLY good flying. For that reason, despite it not being the funniest or most aesthetic entry, it gets my vote. Team 3: Love this entry, simple but nicely done cutting between the two shots, and really put a smile on my face. Team 4: Epic tale of one-upmanship, and definitely the highest-scoring video, as well as having some neat craft. I so thought I was going to vote for it, but then... Team 5: The Match of the Day theme really makes it, and honestly, it's why it gets my vote. Team 6: It's a neat funny montage, and love the Indiana Jones bit, but I prefer the more focussed video. Other notes: As many have said, teams 5 and 6 need to follow the rules! No credits, people! Reddit shaded the forum this time round. A bit surprised not to see any use of the asteroids. Would have made a nice core for Jeb's ship in Team 4's entry, for example.

Molniya orbits are semi-synchronous - period half that of the planet's rotation - not synchronous.

Pool's closed. The next poster gets hit with a banhammer.

A watercraft.

1: Yes.2: The best thing is to figure out what experiments and situations are NOT there. A record will only be shown in the archive if the experiment has been run in the relevant setting. Empty bars will thus signify stuff you've done but haven't brought the data back yet; unless you've failed a mission, you know that data is due when the ship in question comes home.

I can't advise on tree changing mods, but as regards the stock game, why not try a bit of interplanetary instead? Fuel-wise a Gilly return should hardly take more than a Minmus return, if you fly it right, and Eve and Duna are both great targets for one-way landers.

Does it not rather simply need the same orbital period? The more precise the period the less drift there will be, while a little eccentricity will just make the ship appear to librate.

Indeed, I believe it can be done within Kerbin's SOI. So you're then mainly limited by how quickly you can run a Minmus mission. Thus I expect a key aspect of a gameclock speedrun would be to make "express" Minmus trips, with bigger LKO ejection and Minmus capture burns. For instance if you can chuck about 6000 m/s dV from LKO then you can do a Minmus round trip in about 12 hours.