Technical Ben

As said, it's a craft in flight. Graphics show attached, but craft wobbles around them (they stay stationary).

My current attempt at stock interstellar gives me a 2 hour burn time with 4 nukes and ~12kDV and 0.05 TWR (until I ditch a fuel tank or two then it's 0.07). So I'd hate to do that on ion (would need 1000+ xenon tanks I'd guess! ).

Zero does not exist, you must have +1

So, I've imported my save from 0.25 to 0.90 but have had a strange effect happen. All struts on craft in flight are visible, but do not seem to be applying any actual structural force. It's like they are not there. When things are detached (docking or separators) the struts stay there, floating on the craft. Is there a way to try and reset the craft while in flight?

I get it with all sorts of things. Sometimes the (mainly never used) DVD drive kicks into life, it's usually a program being opened somewhere.

Thanks. Guess I'll go back to sandbox then and see if that helps before a 1.0 update...

I use to use a tug, but generally it's quicker (though more payload requirements) to launch the tug with the payload.

Possibly a reference to the VAB being bigger on the inside (at least in older builds).

No, for interstellar I don't want TWR of more than 1... I generally want 0.2 to 0.10 for not too long burns (3k+ DV burn). I can get by on 0.05 at times (30mins to 60 mins, at perhaps 2x or 4x timewarp). So, is the nuke the best? I don't see better DV for any other craft. For launch? Well no, I don't use nukes... ever. I only use them on landers as I have some very special sub 30 part land/tug designs which allow me to max out transfer stage payload size (I can take things other than extra engines/landing stages).

"The NERVA is only best at ultimate Dv when your TWR is between 0.4 and 0.8 which is a reasonable TWR range to be honest." This. Are you telling me I get more DV for interstellar transfers with any other engine? If I do, I'll redesign my fleet! If not, then I'll still not spam the 48-7S just yet. Though a Skipper powered fleet might increase the size of my craft 2fold! PS, can you redo that graph without the ion, as it's of cause the best for probes and/or long burns, but not really optional for any manned or large craft (due to part lag of having to install 100s of ions ).

Ok... really strange thing. I've been backing up saves when they are "fixed" but they keep breaking after every new save. Could it be the save updater that converts 0.25 save to 0.90 also kicking in at times and changing existing 0.90 saves? KSP seems to be killing off crew, and leaving them as "crew" and that is throwing the game off. As: Can the quick fix mod automatically correct these if found (change to "assigned" and "0= Recover")?

Very very nice. Love the wing idea and the "snapping" of them into a dock for easy recovery. I was toying with something similar for ages, but never got the docking right (mine was a 3 stage "abort" stage 1, "aircraft" stage 2 and "launch" stage 3, which could dock/land independently... might try revisiting it now tweakables are in ).

This. The simplicity also means 9/10 I use nukes for landers too for moons and anywhere without an atmos. As I can carry 1 or 2 nukes, use for interplanetary, then for landing, over carrying nukes and landers. Though... should I get a faster PC and more be able to play at a higher FPS with more parts, then I would have no worries on taking a dedicated lander with a small chemical engine. PS, Laie's picture is similar to some of the really large one time launch fuel tugs I use. So as to avoid refuel in orbit, I send up the tank, engines and launch all in one craft. Either with radial nervas to allow them to assist the launch, or central so as to allow a lower TWR when in orbit (but never as the main lifting force!). On smaller launch craft, they are just stacked on the top stage (sometimes in reverse! ).

Only the usual ones of "oh wait, I'm on intercept, did I remember to fire engines to slow down?! [explosboom]" and "Time to head of to the mum... I did clear the station before I started my burn... right? [kaboom]"

Works fine without direct connection as it's the same as RCS and ship wide for fuel. Are you sure it's not just a tiny amount of antimatter across all the tanks? If you (quicksave first ) timewarp really fast, after a month do you have any antimatter?

[edit] Ah... might... finally... have saved my 10mb save file that I've kept running since... 0.18. Will see if my last edit to the crew roster has finally removed all possible Kerbal mix ups.

Nodes are stronger than surface mounting in KSP IIRC. So having it node based might help.

PS, any sci-fi I ever do, will of cause require this type of manoeuvre if I add in warp drive/hyperspace. We may "jump" to another planet, but by darn, we do not want to be orbiting the local star retrograde when we do!

We also get oil and gas shortages. It's just another metric to keep in mind when designing a system (or checking costs).

"Only if the asteroids surface is partially metalic and not composed of pits and cavities. If the laser manages to hit a cavity and begin heating mater close to absolute zero, it will produce volatiles with unpredictable consequences. " No. That's again more dreaming.

Ah thanks, as long as it's not just me then. I do like Mechjeb for making a cup of tea in between launch/landing etc. And especially on edge of your seat designs. Will have to figure out a nice manual landing on my current build then.

Would be great for really large ships.

Again. That's just theorising. Theorising helps no one. Observations do. We observe a force, currently unexplained. If it's "magnetically pushing off the large metal chair the scientist is sitting on" then we don't get much of a "space engine". But if it's "pushing out fuel/pushing off something else" we will soon know from more observations. As said. No amount of "what ifs" or "but it could be" will tell us anything. We need more observations. Guessing what it could be, is like saying "my dice is likely to roll a 3, because it does contain a 3". We know the possibilities, we are yet to observe what it will "roll".

Thanks. That is what I was assuming, but it was doing so without all the math, so had no idea if I was correct. Though I'm all for the flying car in 15 years time...

Nice. I'd be really interested to see some meteorites. Stuff really from outer space.