cantab

I've had a similar bug often when I'm on a hyperbolic trajectory. I just have to keep clicking different points on the orbit until I get a node, then try and slide it into the right position. The Precise Node mod helps move it around and adjust it, but doesn't make it easier to create in the first place.

It's possible, but it will hurt payload fraction by requiring stronger tankage, and it's not without its own engineering challenges. Perhaps the biggest drawback is limiting practical combustion chamber pressures since the combustion chamber pressure can't be higher than that in the tank. That means pressure-fed engines are near universal for orbital manouevering engines and the like, and quite common for upper stages (the Delta II uses a pressure-fed engine in its upper stage for example), where high combustion chamber pressures are less important, but are rare nowadays in first stages.

Watt-hours per kilogram being what the second graph shows.Though Watts/kg is also important. It's all very well having a small battery capable of storing masses of energy, but you also need it to deliver sufficient power for the device. Likewise for large-scale energy storage you need to consider charge, discharge, and self-discharge rates, along with overall efficiency. Oh and throw cost into the mix. Also important in practical applications is the whole system. For an electrically-powered device, it's not valid to compare a battery that gives the current directly to a liquid fuel for a fuel cell and ignore the mass of the fuel cell hardware. Of course sometimes the simple solutions are the best. When it comes to storing energy for load-balancing electricity grids, pumping water uphill is far and away the dominant method, despite the energy density per kg of water being abysmal. A typical pumped storage station can generate upwards of a gigawatt of electricity for several hours before running out.

I wonder if the Stern-Levison parameter could be calculated for the Kerbin system bodies. It's basically a theoretical prediction of whether a body will clear its orbit, and is given by: Λ = k M2/a3/2 Where Λ is the parameter. M is the mass of the planet. a is the semi-major axis of the planet's orbit. k is a value that depends on the mass of the star and on the orbits of the stuff the planet needs to clear out, and is the bit I don't really understand how to calculate. It should be near-constant for all bodies orbiting a given star though. In our own solar system, all the planets have Λ >> 1, the lowest being Mars with Λ = 942. All the dwarf planets have Λ << 1, the highest being Pluto with Λ = 0.003 For the Kerbol system, we can at least find Λ/k quite simply, to get a relative idea of how the various bodies measure up. [table=width: 500, class: grid] [tr] [td]Body[/td] [td](Λ/k) / 1025[/td] [td]Times greater than the next highest Λ/k*[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Moho[/td] [td]1672[/td] [td]2.4[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Eve[/td] [td]1537615[/td] [td]8.7[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Kerbin[/td] [td]176551[/td] [td]106[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Duna[/td] [td]683[/td] [td]149[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Dres[/td] [td]1[/td] [td]N/A[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Jool[/td] [td]99361546[/td] [td]65[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Eeloo[/td] [td]5[/td] [td]3.7**[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Tylo***[/td] [td]9936[/td] [td]N/A[/td] [/tr] [/table] *Not including Tylo **Yes 5/1 is not 3.7. That's due to rounding errors, I calculated with more precision than I've given here. ***The value is that Tylo would have if it were a planet in its own right in place of Jool, not Tylo's value within the extant Jool system. Unlike in the solar system where there is a single big divide, in the Kerbol system we have a much more even spread. The divide between planet and dwarf planet in theory still exists, but we'd need to know k to pin it down, and there may well be borderline cases, Duna I think being a leading candidate. Of course it's also possible even Dres is massive enough to clear its orbit, leaving only Eeloo as a dwarf planet by dint of being in its orbital resonance with Jool (which makes its parameter moot). Also see the example of replacing Jool with Tylo showing how much the orbital distance affect things. Tylo's got 80% of Kerbin's mass, but were it to replace Jool it would only have 6% of Kerbin's "scattering power". This is all the theoretical approach. One could also take an empirical one, by pre-seeding the system with a whole bunch of small bodies in various orbits, letting the game run for a while, and seeing how well the planets clear them out. However I don't know if KSP's simplified gravity would affect the process too severely for it to be realistic.

There's already mods that have done it.The thing is that having stuff too far away is bad for gameplay. At best, you'll have interstellar missions taking so much longer than interplanetary that you wouldn't really be able to run some of both at once: if you want to complete your interstellar mission you'll have to ignore the Kerbin system for decades. At worst, the engines that make interstellar travel possible will make interplanetary travel trivial, defeating the whole point of KSP. The only practical solution, I think, is what the modders have done, which is to make the new star systems binary companions of the Kerbin one, justifying bringing them accessibly close.

You can save weight on launch by simply using a one-man pod or even a probe core and sending the ship up with the processing lab crewed. The minus is they're a lot more fragile than the 3-man pod so aren't a good choice if you expect to make a rough landing.

Any craft that's below a certain level in an atmosphere (around 21 km for Kerbin), not landed, and not within physics range (about 2.5 km) of the active craft will be destroyed. Doesn't matter if it's denoted debris or not. So you have two basic solutions: Stay within 2.5 km of the package from when you drop it to when it lands. You could do this by flying low and slow before dropping, or by circling, or some combination. Or even by landing and taking off again if you like. Drop from around or above 21 km up, and put your bomber onto a high suborbital trajectory after the drop. You'll probably want plenty of rocket thrust for this. Switch to the science package (with [ and ]), fly it down to landing, then switch back to your bomber before that gets below 21 km.

It shouldn't be too hard. The delta-V map quotes 1380 m/s for getting from Duna's surface up into low orbit. Getting down will need less since you can use aerobraking to help. If it's just for crew transfer that's well within the capability of a simple SSTO rocket. Engine, fuel, capsule, parachutes, landing legs, done. Add docking ports and RCS if you want to refuel without using the claw. You won't even need nuclear engines, and in fact I'm not sure how much the stock LV-N would help considering its own mass. If you're shipping Kethane up you'll need to scale up of course, but it still needn't be complicated.

Before playing KSP I knew how orbital mechanics worked. After playing KSP, it feels virtually as natural and intuitive as mechanics here on Earth.

Agreed, nothing wrong in boosters. It's still a spaceplane, just not an SSTO one. I will point out that you don't need the ASAS module any more since the command modules now do SAS, you can just use the regular reaction wheels and save a bit of weight. (Unless you're using a mod like stock rebalance that changes them.)

In the demo the file Resources/ResourcesGeneric.cfg has the fuel densities in it. Changing them, though, won't help, since the engine fuel consumption goes by mass. Change the fuel density from 5 kg per unit to 1 kg per unit and the engines will just draw five times as many fuel units per second at the same throttle setting. If you want to make your engines do more on less fuel the only way is to increase their specific impulse. This is under the atmosphereCurve section in the engine's cfg file. The higher figure is for vacuum, the lower for sea level.

In stock they're mainly for looks, but some ideas for uses: Fuel depot. The Mun's not the best place for one, but you could top up landers so they don't need to carry their ascent fuel down, or can go biome hopping. Don't forget that along with regular fuel and oxidizer there's monopropellant, xenon, and even electricity. Acting as an electricity depot in turn means you'll want lots of solar panels or RTGs. Science station, with the lab to allow experiment reuse and possibly dockable science modules that can go onto rovers or biome hoppers. Crew habitat. Park a bunch of Kerbals there, and then in future you can send up ships unmanned and have them crew up at the base. Though this probably is better done with an LKO space station. Base for rovers, skycranes, and other stuff you might have operating around the Mun.

Back on topic, sounds a lot like the Vanguard launch failure the USA had early in the space race. Argentina, though, is one nation I won't be disappointed in failing at their missile space rocket launches.

It's been discussed a few times that no, they won't. Kerbin's vicinity seems more cluttered than Earth, but it would still take several quadrillion big E classes to come even close to Kerbin's mass. Even with unlimited computer resources, I doubt you could get that many in your game before the real-world Sun expands into a red giant.

No, because clearing the neighbourhood does not mean getting rid of every little bit of gravel - otherwise there'd be no planets at all.

If I want to keep it as a cycler (and presumably stick a ton of fuel or something on it) then there is.

Really old challenge. If you want to revive it you should probably start a new thread.

I believe all the camera modes are subject to gimbal lock. It might be nice to have a truly free one, but you'd then need a third axis of rotation too, or else you'd get the camera stuck upside-down and lack an obvious way to right it.

Interesting idea. I assume I'd have to set it up to never enter Duna or Kerbin's SOIs, otherwise the orbit would get perturbed, right? Only minus I see is I've found arranging intercepts in solar orbit a bit of a nuisance, in part because of having to manually enter the orbital parameters if I want to use a launch window planner. (It's doable, but it's easier to just fling stuff to Duna directly.)

I've not had any going long enough to get really far away. I've seen a couple with periapses out near Duna's orbit, though of course they're found closer. There's one I'm planning on course correcting so it actually intercepts Duna's orbit, then I'll try and arrange an intercept and aerocapture.

I started my first space station. Decided I may as well go big or go home (And yes, I launched it with full fuel and monoprop tanks, though the SRBs were tweaked empty)

Chances are you just need a small course correction in some direction. Don't overlook radial burns when doing this either.

You could emulate a sun-synchronous orbit with periodic stationkeeping manouvres. For a relatively small satellite an ion drive would do the trick. Pick an orbit with apopasis above the north or south poles and as high as you're happy with to minmise delta-V needed. I reckon you can get a few years between xenon topups. Drawback is needing to do the stationkeeping, of course.

KSP's aerodynamics doesn't allow a bare capsule to control its re-entry. You'll have to add aerodynamic control surfaces.

As mentioned, the orange isn't rust but the natural colour of the insulation. I believe the real Space Shuttle External Tank stopped being painted because they figured paint wasn't needed and it's heavy. True, it doesn't always mix well with the smaller tanks, but that's why you can just use two 32's if you want. And to be honest, if you really care about rocket aesthetics you need to turn to mods.