mjl1966

How does career mode affect availability? I installed what I think is the latest (KAS Master) and none of the parts are in my list. I'm up to tech level 4.

Ouch, my side hurts from laughing! - - - Updated - - - Ran out of charge and SAS quit working?

Good deal vexx. I have almost certainly isolated it to an add-on. I'll have a look at the guidelines to see what my next step should be.

I love being around people who are way smarter than me. Thanks for clearing this up!

Not sure if this is the right subforum, but we are in beta and I have found a way to reliably break KSP. There is something about the ship that I'm currently trying to build that consistenty breaks KSP. When I go to launch, it shows the rocket way up high, then on the ground, then it disappears and the only thing left is a hazy blue background. It will not revert, or go to space center. The only way out is a hard coutoff from task manager. When I reopen KSP, all my current flights are gone (!). I restored from an earlier backup, deleted ALL my ships, built a little bitty one stage ship to establish some kind of baseline and that worked fine. Built my new ship from scratch, did not save it (let system do default save) and when I go to launch, the sequence above starts all over again. I've been through this 4 times now and can reliably reproduce it. Is there a log/file/debug I can send that would be of help? I don't know what specific component is hosing me and honestly even when I find out, I don't want to post it publicly. (I do NOT want to step on any toes of our hard-working mod community. I'll let HarverseR do that Again, if this is an improper post, please advise proper procedure for bug reporting. Thanks!

So we know dV = Ve ln R and that Ve refers to the velocity of the propellant as it escapes the rocket nozzle. We also know that R is the ratio of total mass to dry mass. What I have always wondered is how oxidizer fits into all this. Is it considered part of the propellent mass or the dry mass? Since it's not going out the back end, I keep wondering if it's just dead weight. Thoughts?

I'm trying to figure out how to calculate when and where to burn for a transfer orbit without using maneuver nodes and it seems that "0" in the reference plane for Kerbal would be helpful so you can determine "where" your ship is relative to "where" the Mun is. There has to be a zero somewhere so everything else means something. Where is "zero" degrees longitude on the Kerbal reference plane? How can you possible calculate anything without knowing that? (Honest question - I'm still just learning orbital mechanics and synchronizing transfer orbits mathematically is beyond me at the moment.)

Thank you! I was going nuts over this. Proudly bought patched conics and was sorely disappointed...

KSP, if it is to reach its true potential, will be a niche game. If you don't have the motivation to learn dV=VelnR then this is not the game for you. That means it's difficult by default. It's very "sciency" I did 7 launches lat night just to test different points in the atmospheric efficiency curve. (Turning direct to prograde once efficiency peaks seems to work best.) It's THAT kind of game. But you don't need to know calculus? How brilliant is that? My point is that this is an orbital mechanics simulator, not an XBox title. The frame of mind that will best succeed here is the one that asks, "What can I do with what I have?" At the same time, do you know why KSP is more popular than Orbiter? It's more fun. It is an amazing balance between realistic simulation and user interaction. You think KSP is hard? Go do Orbiter and get back to me. KSP, as one of the few crowd funded games that have survived YEARS of development, is what it is and, as such, has a very bright future.

I went from zero to upgraded tracking and launch pad in one day. The trick is to look for the contracts that pay the best. Some of the tests pay MUCH better than others. The other is to gather science independent of contracts. I agree that Fineprint as implemented is a little grindy, but I'm hoping that things start taking off as I go along. Kind of like a launch. It starts out kind of slow... At the same time, it's an interesting challenge to get into orbit with just 18t to work with, especially if you need to collect science. So, I see both plus and minus here. It should be hard in the beginning, but it seems a little uninteresting at first. I'm wondering if some kind of staged program similar to Mercury/Gemini/Apollo might spice things up. Stage 1: Kongress funds the Kerbal Space Program. Barely. You have just enough to build a single stage suborbital vehicle that collects atmospheric data in preparation for future missions. The science unlocks tech, but also unlocks missions. Merkury stuff. Stage 2: Success brings publicity brings more funding and the entry of more aerospace kompanies to provide new and better systems. These missions include orbiting, docking and EVA. (Gemini) More tech. More missions unlocked. More Kongressional funding. Stage 3: Munar orbital missions. Single capsule at first, then with transition and docking and trip to the moon, but no landing. Kerpollo 8 stuff. Must master retrograde munar orbital insertion, because you know Kerpollo 13 is just around the corner. Stage 4: Munar landing, complete with Walter Kronkite (what a fit, huh?) Several missions, beginning with rock samples and working up to rovers and the first bits of Moonbase Kilo. And so forth. You could fill things in with fueling depots and other goodies that make sense in the context of getting to the Mun and, eventually, the rest of the system. Contracts could start to creep in as actual sources of revenue become available. But at first, it's all R&D fueled by PR and Go fever, which means you have to get it right! The problem with the current system is that there is no real goal. Granted, as things progress, we will want the flexibility to do whatever we want. But a staged munar landing program to begin with might be more interesting to get the ball rolling. Is this a mod opportunity?

Just posting here in case there is a known reason or known user input error that I need to avoid. I was playing career mode. Shut down last night, all seemed well. Came back this afternoon, my saves/default folder is empty. All my ships in VAB folder are also gone. Gene is popping up everywhere. It's total kaos and mayhem! What could I have done in game to overwrite these by mistake? How do I keep this from happening in the future? Thanks!

How do I change this ti "ANSWERED"?

Mine don't seem to be working with beta 0.9. I have never used these before, so that might have something to do with it. When I try to attach either type of fairing to the ring, they appear as radial "spokes" from the center of the ring and will not attach. This is if the ring is by itself or under something. I've watched video and read instructions. Seems pretty simple. Can anyone confirm these working with vanilla KSP 0.9? (Or is this a known user input problem?) EDIT: Version I downloaded last night was 3.10 (how'd that happen?) 3.11 works fine.

Can you explain what that means in a little more detail? I stumbled across this option to "activate navigation" and have no idea what it does. It doesn't seem to affect maneuver nodes.

Thanks to you all! You answered my question + a whole lot more. After reading these responses, I did more experiments and found that a 5 tank single stack will give me 4375, which is juuust enough to establish an orbit at 70K peri. Actual net dV was ~2300 so it does seem that a whole herd of vees are being rounded up by Drag and Gravity and other members of the Great Rocket Tyranny. Great stuff fellas. This really helped.

If I right click a waypoint, it gives me the option to "activate navigation" What does this do/how do I use this?

OK, I'm just trying to sort out how to use the in game parms to correctly plug into the rocket equation. Please help me understand where I went wrong. TEST VEHICLE: MKI FL-T400 LV-T30 MASS (dry, I think) Using the reported component mass sans fuel mass. M(mki) 0.84 M(flt400) 2.25* M(lvt30)1.25 So, Mo = 4.34. (i box reports 4.3, so far so good) FUEL MASS Prop 0.9 Ox 1.1 So, Mf = 2.0 Using the *BIG FAT SCIENTIFIC ASSUMPTION that the reported mass of the fuel tank (2.25) is its dry mass, we get MT=6.34 Isp = 320. Plugging into tyranny equation: dV=320*9.82*ln(6.34/4.34) = 1190. Emperical vertical launch at 100% and 50% throttle only gets me to v=570 So, questions: a.) Am I calculating this incorrectly? b.) Does drag really suck up that much dV? c.) all of the above? *Of note: assuming reported fuel tank mass includes fuel mass, the calculated dV is 1966, which is even more way off. Thanks!