SkyRender

So I took a contract to keep a stationary orbit over a given location. Easily done, orbital parameters matched for geostationary orbit at 0 degree inclination, target is exactly below me. The condition will not complete, and thus the contract will not complete. Do I have to maintain the position over that location for a specific duration, or? What does KSP want from me here?

Eight years ago, I saw a video showcasing a strange game featuring simple rocket-building where you actually had to respect the laws of physics to get anywhere. I threw my lot in with that game and became an early backer of it, the only time I have ever done so. I do not and never have regretted that decision. This announcement has left me quite happy indeed, as it means that that strange game which won me over in late 2011 has become something far greater than I could ever have imagined. As Scott Manley implored you, please don't screw this up.

What's interesting is, KSP itself has a tool built into it to prevent this sort of thing: physics smoothing. It runs it whenever you load a save, and also when you come out of timewarp. I don't know if there's any easy way to access it, but the code is already in the game to prevent the rover jump problem: basically just activate and deactivate timewarp upon docking for just long enough that the physics smoothing activates. Done by code, it would probably be almost imperceptible.

I have a save in progress that I can pretty easily set up to see the "rover blast-off" effect at will. It mainly seems to happen on lower-gravity bodies (especially the Mun and Minmus). EDIT: Here we are: www.skyrender.net/kas_rover_jump.zip The craft to test it on is Mun Mining Operation Driller; just undock and/or dock the cables leading to the mouse drones to see it in action. I have a few other mods installed that might also need to be loaded to get this save to work. They are KIS, Planetary Base Systems, TAC Life Support, and Kerbal Alarm Clock. Both of the expansion packs are installed as well. I also set up custom flags, but I doubt that's going to make the save unloadable (if it does, I can provide them as well). EDIT 2: Just to clarify, I am building a testbed save with just KAS installed to showcase the issue. However, that won't be ready for at least a few more hours due to existing obligations in Real Life(tm). As such, I figured I would provide the offending save now if anyone wanted to see if they could muddle it out before then. EDIT 3: I was able to build the testbed before Real Life(tm) intervened, and actually got the bug triggering on the launchpad no less! Not quite as dramatically as on the Mun, but close! http://www.skyrender.net/KAS_Rover_Bug.zip This just requires KSP 1.7.1 and KAS; no expansions or any other mods. Hope it helps! To see the effect the quickest, select UNDOCK and then DOCK on the left hose port. It will jump a tiny bit when you undock, and jump a few meters into the air when docked again. EDIT 4: Wow, I didn't realize what a goldmine of docking testing this save is. The right hose port requires a bit of ship swapping to test this on, but the jump is even more grand. And if you do it a few times it will jump about 10m in the air! From the launchpad, mind you!

So the fix for the various winch types definitely works for newly-created ones, but pre-existing parts will still do the "not available" bit. Gonna see if I can isolate the save file info difference to fix that... EDIT: Figured it out! Find the RTS1 listings and revert all malfunctioning ones to: persistedLinkState = Available persistedLinkPartId = 0 persistedLinkNodeName = Doing that will "unstick" them. EDIT 2: I have found a new bug (well, bugs really) while experimenting with this. 1.) attempting to switch between docked and undocked will launch any rovers involved in the process sky-high (often ejected at 20m/s or greater vertically). 2.) If an RTS-1 hose gets disconnected at any length greater than 30m, it can never be recovered. There is no "retract" option, and any Kerbal attempting to pick it up will get an error claiming that the distance is too great on the hose.

I am starting to wonder. It's not letting me interact at all with winches of any type when I attach them manually; it just makes an error beep when I try and shows the "not available for a link" message. Trying to do it manually from the craft says the winch is locked.

I guess I was expecting them to be able to lug them on their backs. Or at least be able to shove them in a storage container (which small reaction wheels are blatantly smaller than) and carry that.

Alright, so I'm a bit lost here. The manual says Kerbals can carry quite a bit of weight. The smallest reaction wheel is quite clearly much, much smaller than a Kerbal. So why can't a Kerbal grab a small reaction wheel? Or a small radiator panel, for that matter? They're both lighter than some of the items they can pick up (in particular most KAS parts), yet they're listed as having volumes 2 to 8 times the Kerbal's volumetric carrying capacity.

More experimentation on deployed science reveals that, even when not in time warp, they work VERY slowly. I left KSP running and focused on my deployed Mun experiments for 10 hours while I was at work, and when I got back, the progress on the experiments had only gone up by about 3%. The requested ~40,000% of 50% of Mystery Goo science for the Mun is not going to happen any time soon (and by the time I even got to 50%, that request would probably read around 150,000% of 50% anyway).

Not sure if this has been mentioned or not, but KPBS habitat, lab, and greenhouse modules do not contribute to contract requirements for having room for X Kerbals in contracts. They also don't register as viable TAC LS locations. Pretty sure this is not intended behavior.

I don't remember seeing this happen in any previous version, but mini-docking ports sometimes just sort of... bounce off each other now instead of actually docking. Angle and speed are completely irrelevant, they'll just slam headfirst and then jettison the craft that should have docked away in a random direction at 0.5 to 2m/s. It's weird, and annoying.

Alright, more problems have emerged with deployed science. It only works when you're not in time warp; as soon as you time warp, it becomes disconnected from its power sources and does nothing. This includes when you time-warp from another vessel. This, needless to say, is a big problem.

Either there's some bad mod synergy going on, or the "gather surface science" mission is buggy right now. It started out saying "gather 100% of 50% of surface mystery goo science", but now it's saying something absurd like "4,538% of 50%" instead.

It kind of seems like deployable science doesn't actually transmit anything on its own. I have a lovely setup on the Mun with 5 relay satellites (2 regular antennae, 2 relay antennae each) in synchronized 100KM orbits for continuous surface coverage, yet even in sunlight my deployed science won't transmit. I've got enough power, I've got a control unit for them, all of the stations say they're connected, yet no science goes out. What gives?

Found a few issues in the mission builder in Making History... * If you set a node to activate once N time has elapsed, it will auto-activate if the player restarts the mission no matter how far out it's set to * A number of trigger conditions won't happen if the conditions check current vessel and (specific vessel) when current vessel IS the specific vessel, nor will they activate if "current vessel" is a Kerbal on EVA * Checks for if a vessel has entered the SOI of a planet only happen when current vessel changes SOI; not a big issue normally, but problematic if you're warping Kerbals and/or ships about for mission purposes

I'm trying out the mission builder, and I can't find any way to prevent the player from switching a ship I've put into orbit around Eeloo. I'd rather have them start at the Space Center and send a rescue vessel to help out said Eeloo-orbiting ship, but I can't figure out how to do that. Any help?

Seems interesting, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how you create new vessels in Making History. It just gives me a blank drop-down list when I try to do a creator built ship and there's no option anywhere to build a ship. EDIT: Nevermind, figured it out. I didn't expect the option to be at the bottom of the list...

I don't know for sure if this idea hasn't been fronted before, but KSP would really benefit from a mod that allows the player to propose contracts and get bids from companies on them. There is certainly real-world precedent for this sort of thing, and it would enhance the contract system considerably if it were in there. Basically, what I have envisioned is a system wherein the player can specify the mission they want to do (ie. all of the conditions they need to meet to succeed), and depending on the various attributes of the firms out there, there will be bids made on that contract proposal. To discourage constantly spamming easy ones like "transmit science from space around Kerbin", companies would lose interest in repeat contract conditions and eventually you wouldn't be able to get anyone to bite on a contract condition that you've done to death (or they'll pay you so little that you might as well not bother). Similarly, some contracts would not interest certain firms at all. Potentially it could even involve companies making a counter-proposal that alters your mission plan but pays out better if you accept their modified terms. And of course certain types of mission goals would be unavailable for logistical reasons (you can't tell a firm you want to propose a contract to rescue some random Kerbal from orbit, for example; where would that Kerbal even come from?). It's a very complex mod I have in mind, obviously, but it would really revitalize the contract system and incentivize more creative missions if players could actually get rewarded for their ideas instead of having to hope the RNG rolls a decent match to the mission idea they have to help pay for it. I've never had much luck with making mods in the past, so I'm interested in finding out if anyone else would like to help me out with this idea. Or even if someone's already working on a mod like this (or has released one; I've never been able to find it if it does exist).

I know KAS has always had issues with "mouse drones" (small often-wheeled probes attached to the main craft via winch that are designed to dock to other crafts or mouse drones), but they've gotten significantly worse lately. I have a pair of craft on the Mun right now (a fuel barge and an ore refinery) whose mouse drones won't move. At all. They don't respond to any inputs when selected in undocked plug mode. Even more unusual is that they DO work fine for about 5 minutes after being plug-undocked from their parent craft. But then suddenly they stop responding to all WASD input after a set amount of time. Ideas? EDIT: Nevermind, turns out it's a quirk of the comms network. Apparently small probes have a range of about a gnat's chuffs for antennae by default, and comms control authority is not inherited through winch connections unless in docked mode.

I just switched to good ol' Procedural Fairings. Those have so many more advantages. Like being able to strut to the fairings themselves.

This is getting ridiculous. I built a craft that is perfectly stable on the launchpad with no fairings, doesn't wobble one bit. I add a fairing to it, it explodes on the launchpad. I adjust the fairing to be a bit further away from the payload, it explodes even more violently. I'm pretty sure that's not how "physics easing" is supposed to work!

It's been a long time, hasn't it? I'm still here! I was working on my second novel (Torvista), which I finally published. You can find both it and my original novel (The Barrier Key) on Amazon.com. Help support a KSP fan and aspiring author! Anyway, let's get on to the latest article on Kerbals, shall we? Kerbals and Cameras It has been noted with some trepidation by those visiting Kerbin that Kerbals do not seem to know what cameras are. Which is not to say that they don't have equipment which utilizes visual sensors, of course, because they do. However, no Guide writer or ill-fated Kerbin tourist has actually observed a Kerbal taking any sort of photograph or recording any sort of video. This seems particularly daft given that historical data shows that there is extensive video footage of the Kerbals' first visit to the Mun. In an effort to discover the root of this anomaly, our lead Kerbologist of last week took some time to return to Kerbin and research firsthand just why this was the case. Our current lead Kerbologist is currently out on a rescue mission to save said former lead Kerbologist from the impact course with Eeloo that he is currently on, which leaves us with no staff to look into the matter. In proud Guide tradition, therefore, it has fallen upon the editor to write this article and make things up as he goes. Kerbals once used cameras extensively, recording every achievement they made and also silly videos where they would challenge one another to Bop-eating contests. This footage covered every moment of Kerbal history, from the first member of the Church of Treerock to defect to Ikeism, on up to the last known recorded footage of Kerbals on the Mun. While there was a massive purge of any and all knowledge prior to the Kerbal Space Program's existence, footage of Kerbals after the program's start should have survived. And it did: the only video footage any Kerbal recorded after KSP was founded was of the Mun landing. This footage was deemed so embarrassing and detrimental to the space program that it was locked away and all cameras were destroyed to prevent future records from escaping. To this day, no Kerbal spacecraft is equipped with any cameras, and all Kerbals not part of the space program simply take KSP's word for it that missions succeed. UPDATE: Our Kerbologists returned ahead of schedule, and even got some research done on the subject. It would seem that our editor was completely off once again. The Mun landing videos were staged back in the early days of the space program. Their distribution to non-Kerbals was a joke, because no Kerbal actually believes they're real. Kerbals actually have thousands of video records of their many, many voyages. Every single Kerbal vessel is equipped with a massive array of tiny cameras that records every single moment of every flight, and we never saw the footage because we didn't think to look on KerbTube before writing this article. In the editor's defense, nobody besides a Kerbologist would be brave enough to check KerbTube, given that you have to be on Kerbin to access it.

I kind of feel bad now, having been one of the first to bring up this bug... I feel like I'm the one who heaped all this extra work on JPLRepo because of it. I realize someone would have brought it up eventually, of course, but still.

3 years after I put my first novel (The Barrier Key) up on Amazon, its sequel is now available! This one has some space travel in it, just in case that's a selling point for you. You can get it here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0749HX97S If you missed the original novel, it can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JDVR7T4 And if you're the sort of person who prefers a physical copy to read, paperbacks are available for both: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1521948992 https://www.amazon.com/dp/1521950016 Enjoy!

This is why I love the KSP mod scene so much. Such dedication! Thank you for all you're doing for us humble TACLS users, JPLRepo.