Stratzenblitz75

I can confirm that there is nothing cheaty about RealChutes. It allows you to deploy your parachutes gradually without inducing 15+ Gs and it introduces some very useful parts, like the stack mounted parachute. Other than that, the parachutes behave very similarly to stock. In fact, I'd argue that using RealChutes is more difficult than stock, since the parachutes deploy gradually, you might end up smashing into the ground if you come in too fast.

That's because Karbonite cannot be mined from Eve's crust. However, you CAN extract Karbonite from Eve's oceans and atmosphere with the Oceanic Extractor and the Atmospheric Scoop respectively.

That wasn't supposed to happen...

Happy 1000 pages? And on December 1st of all days. I think I have just the thing to celebrate this occasion... MORE POWAH!

Install FAR+DRE and try to make aircraft. Trust me, it is MUCH harder than it sounds.

My kod, how is this possible!? How does this even work!? My mind... can't... comprehend... this... MADNESS! Anyways.... Active vessels: Two, or maybe three! Its a lot more if you count the debris! Obligatory specs: RAM: 8 GB KSP windows 32 bit Quad core i5-3470 CPU AMD Radeon HD 7800 Running lots of mods over here! ATM FTW. Also, I pruned the **** out of my game-data folder and learned some interesting things in the process. For example, did you know that the "Spaces" folder (AKA the IVA views) inside the Squad folder is over 200 MB? (or maybe one of my 58 mods is doing that, but I doubt so) In contrast, the B9-Aerospace Spaces folder is only 13 MB; and they look wayyy better than the stock IVAs. That's absurd! Ofc I deleted all of the stock IVAs ASAP and module-manger'd them out of all the stock capsules. Its not like I'll be IVAing with the stock capsules when I have the gorgeous B9-cockpits at hand. As a result, my GameData folder is only 866 MB and I only get RAM crashes when I play with my lag monster too much.

Mission control, we've suffered an unplanned structural failure. Please evacuate while you still can.

There were 20 5m KW Rocketry Griffon Century powered boosters in the first stage. Gave me just enough power for the rocket to have a TWR of 1.11 on the launchpad. The stage in the picture consists of five 20 meter procedural fuel tanks powered by 11 Griffon Century engines each. At launch, it was producing 900 Mega-newtons of thrust.

When the first stage falls back down to the launchpad and destroys it...

I've had this happen to me before when using Pwings, B9-Aerospace and FAR in 0.25. CoL was offset in SPH and the plane flew horribly, if it even got off the runway. I found that taking off the wings, and replacing them (not reattaching them, completely replacing them) fixes the issue, most of the time. Sometimes I had to restart KSP completely to solve the issue. I have no idea what is causing this. I'll have to make a craft that has a misaligned CoL and share it to see if this a bug with FAR, B9, or Pwings, or if one of my other mods is messing things up.

Thanks for awesome-ifying my screenshot! I'll say it again, your work is absolutely stunning. I know what I'm going to use for my desktop now

Looking good! I really like the "boulder pile" planet idea. I think navigating between the gaps of the boulders (provided that they are big enough, I can't tell the scale of the image) could pose an interesting exploration challenge. There could even be some form of life nestled inside the planet where it would be protected from the sun.

Wow, these look really nice! You'd make J.J. Abrams proud Mind if I pile on a request?

Use the Klaw. That thing is the single, most concentrated point of bugginess in KSP. Just try experimenting around with it, you're bound to break it in some way.

IVA + De-orbiting + FAR + DRE = Fun!... Ermm, I mean, a terrible tragedy!

Ok, this helps narrow it down. For Duna, or any other planet with large moons, you can use gravity assists to fix your inclination without spending much DeltaV. SRV Ron posted an excellent example of this. Fixing a bad orbit around a planet that has no significant moons, such as Eve or Dres is a lot more difficult and can take a lot of Delta V depending on how bad the orbit is. The best way to get a good orbit around these planets is to get a good approach. Here's how I enter into an equatorial orbit around such planets: Step 1: Adjust your periapsis so that it passes over or close to the equator of the target planet (since there are no stock tools that tell you where the equator is, just use your best judgment). Essentially, your periapsis is crossing the AN or DN of the planet's equatorial plane. Step 2: Perform an insertion burn/aerobrake that is just enough to get captured by the planet. At this point, you will have an inclined orbit with both a low periapsis and a very high apoapsis that cross the AN or DN of the planet's equatorial plane. Step 3: Fix your inclination at apoapsis. Since your apoapsis is so high, you will only be traveling 10-50 m/s, which means that inclination changes are very cheap. Your orbit should look something like this: Step 4: Perform burn a periapsis to circularize orbit. Step 5: Enjoy your equatorial orbit. There's actually a simple trick to ensuring that you get a counterclockwise orbit. If you are transferring to an outward planet (Kerbin -> Duna, for example), adjust your periapsis so that it is on the day side of the planet. If you are transferring to an inward planet (Kerbin -> Eve, for example), adjust your periapsis so that it is on the night side of the planet.

This Gilly encounter after my second (or third try?) of aerobraking at Eve. As you can see, it was lined up almost perfectly. http://i.imgur.com/fRPm8fR.jpg"] What are the odds?

Could you show us a picture of your orbit? Without a picture, I can't really see how you should go about fixing your inclination efficiently, as there are differing solutions based on the situation. As for setting up your interplanetary burns, I recommend you use this launch window planner. Just give it the planet of Orgin, the destination planet and the earliest departure date and it'll tell you how much Delta V you need for the transfer, and when you should depart.

I built these a while ago that are designed around the idea of grabbing cargo with a Klaw. The trick is to have the Klaw grab the cargo from above, rather than the side. To do this, set up your landing gear so that when you lower them, the Klaw grabs the cargo. Also, I don't recommend using regular docking ports. They are way too flimsy for heavy cargo; the Klaw is way stronger and makes a much more rigid connection. Don't use multiple klaws either, they are buggy and one klaw is enough to lift all the cargo you need anyways. If you're not against mods, another solution I've found to work quite well is to use a KAS winch to raise your cargo after it sinks through the floor. The only disadvantage to this is that you need Kerbal to set it up.

I use gravity assists every time I can. They can greatly reduce the amount of Dv required to perform any given transfer, and therefore, you can use a smaller ship. Yes, I agree that gravity assists can be tedious to set up, but this is offset by how satisfying it is, at least for me, to execute them. Plus, I find it entertaining to flyby a planet/moon 1 km over the surface at 2 km/s; makes for some thrilling scenes. This is why I like the Jool system, there's just so many opportunities for gravity assists. Tylo, Laythe and Vall are so massive and so close together (relative to the other planets), it makes gravity assists easy and powerful. Entering the Jool system at an inclination and want an equatorial Jool orbit? Gravity assist + aerobrake over the pole of Laythe. Leaving the Jool system? Gravity assist at Tylo or Laythe. Want to go from Bop or Pol to an equatorial orbit around Laythe? Gravity assist at Tylo to fix inclination and lower periapsis, then aerobrake at Laythe. If you plan it right, you can get close flybys (close enough to get "in space near" science reports) of Tylo, Laythe, and Vall while spending less than 50 m/s Dv. Its fun! The Mun is also a useful place to gravity assist. It can save you a decent amount of Dv when going to and from Minmus. The Mun is also useful when transferring to Eve or Duna. Set it up correctly, and you can shave about 100 m/s off of your Eve or Duna departure burn, which can mean a lot if you're carrying heavy equipment (such as an Eve lander). I've personally never tried a free return gravity assist off the Mun, but its on my ever growing to-do list. Planet gravity assists are much harder to set up as they require a lot more precision than moon gravity assists. I've only done one planet-planet gravity assist before, and that was Duna-Duna gravity assist because my lone NERVA wasn't powerful enough to get a Jool transfer from Duna orbit (even after multiple periapsis kicks). I basically just increased by Solar apoapsis so that my Solar orbit had double the period of Duna's orbit. Therefore, when I reached Solar periapsis, I would encounter Duna and perform a gravity assist. Even then, it wasn't enough to get a Jool intercept so I had to perform a small burn. The whole ordeal saved me about 150 m/s of Dv, which isn't a lot but I had no other choice since my Dv budget was so strict. That being said, I'm looking forward to doing more planet gravity assists in the future. PLAD is definitely inspiring me...

The unbalanced thrust is caused by the way KSP reads the craft file and distributes the air among the jet engines. Kasuha describes it better than I ever could. That being said, there is a way to trick the game into sharing the Intake Air equally among all the jet engines.

Wat. Please explain how you managed to do this...

^This Ladders are a pain in the *** to set up currently. That's why I just use a KAS winch to lower my Kerbals from my Eve lander to the surface:D. Uses less parts too!

Oh well, I guess this is the last time I try to port my save-game over to 0.25. I'll just stick with KSP 0.24.2 since there seems to be less problems with it. Thanks for your response anyways.

So, while testing my Eve exploration glider in 0.25, I encountered this very strange and brutal bug. As you can see, I've jacked up the density of Kerbin's atmosphere with HyperEdit to simulate Eve's atmosphere at sea-level to make testing more convenient. This bug still occurs in the "real" Eve's atmosphere, usually when I descend into the lower atmosphere, even at shallow angles and reasonable speeds. I'm running a few mods, the most significant being FAR and B9-Aerospace and they are both up to date. Now, this bug only seems to effect my aircraft in dense atmospheres (such as Eve), they perform just fine in the thinner atmospheres of Kerbin, Duna, and Laythe. The strangest part is that this same glider design worked perfectly in Eve's atmosphere in KSP 0.24.2. Its just 0.25 that's causing the problems. (BTW, I rebuilt the craft in 0.25 just eliminate the possibility of bugs from porting over my craft from 0.24.2, same result) Does anyone have any idea whats going on here?