davidpsummers

My default is shallow. But I'm thinking of sending a rover on a separate vessel and if I do that, I will need to land it near the kerbalnauts. I've been assuming that even with a steep decent, I can use the chutes (thought maybe I'll do shallow for the Kerbals and then steep with the unmanned lander to be close without killing anyone :-). Thanks for the comment about fully opening them early, that is good. I'm not sure what "streamer" means. There is that minimum pressure setting, but I was never sure what it was for. I clearly isn't when the open fully and I assume they come out when deploy them? (Currently, for Duna, I tend to deploy them just after the heating phase of aerobraking stops).

Yeah, I won't try landing on chutes alone. My experience with my unmanned landers was that you put a bunch in than fire engines real quick just as you touch down.

Yeah, I try to be careful with my Kerbals (I've stranded them but not killed any). 1500 m/s vs. 1380 is well within the margin I was allowing. And thanks for the "Bon Voyage"!

Well, I won't need the chutes after I land on this first mission. But how do you repack them?

I'm planning my first manned mission to Duna. Unlike the places I've been, it has an atmosphere. The delta-v map says it take 1380 m/s to reach low orbit. How close am I likely to get to that taking off through the atmosphere?

The basic maneuver tutorial.... http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Basic_maneuvers gives 160 m/s at 5,000 m?

I find I have to be closer to 2.2 to be able to reach the optimal speeds listed in the basic tutorial? http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Basic_maneuvers

I have seen people take the couple sets of boosters... and attached them radially to rockets. But I can't figure how you do it?

Orbits should be getting closer together if the intercept distance is getting smaller. I've been in a position where I waited until later in the orbit to try and make it close, and it cost me delta-V I couldn't afford.

I am trying to get to Kerbin (a pass by Eve scattered my orbit a bit and I'm trying to reacquire the encounter). I have a closest approach. I then try and refine it using a maneuver. In some directions, more delta-V will reduce the separation until a reach a point where the intercept abruptly disappears. One would expect it would decrease until you reach the point of maximum improvement, and then increase again. Instead it just decreases and then disappears.

If you have a space station, _shutdown_all_ the_engines on the station and ships attached. (Left double click and hit the shutdown button). You will be using the station a while and you _will_ hit the shift key by accident.

As I read my initial note, it wasn't clear that switching away from them, in addition to higher warp, is desirable. Though, in the end, when you switch away you will want to warp other missions, so how to handle warp is still the issue? Again, my suggestion is just do a special short cut in the calculations for the ion drive that lets this happen.

It only gives you up to 4x. (In my test "sundiver" mission, the burn was 3 hours.) And the indicator was going yellow and red, so I wasn't sure how badly the computer was keeping up. (Though, like I said, a modest error would have been acceptable if I had known that was all I was getting, though even so the warp wouldn't be high enough).

You need some way to allow you to leave ion drives running and/or warp with them. Maybe with a simple shut-off timer for those who don't have Kerbal Alarm Clock. I suspect that this may run into some issues for physical vs. non-physical warp. It would be worth it to do some short cut on this, because otherwise they are too limited to be of any real potential. Maybe they just calculate a new orbit when you switch back to them without worry about the details.

Got it to work. The problem was how I was using my trackpad...

Tried (all left) Shift & Option/alt, Shift & Command, and Shift & Control.

For the record I did drop some SRB's on the way up. Not sure I wanted them for the controlled burns I would need to follow anyway. The way to go, IMO, is take the biggest booster you have, replace the payload with docking ports, and see how will it gets to orbit by pumping fuel down rather than staging. If you don't make it, train again where you do the first staging and then skip the rest.

No. When the lower stages run out of fuel, I just transfer fuel from the upper stages to the lower stages and keep going. (You left click on one tank and the option-left click, on a Mac, I forget what key you use for PC, and that brings up a menu where you can transfer fuel.) You don't have a payload, the empty booster is the payload, (just put a little control pod on it to control it, in mine, two (to be symmetrical) of the boosters have OKTO's just behind the nose cones). You can get a fair fraction of the delta-V you would get by staging (the rocket does get lighter, but you don't loose the weight of the empty tanks and unused engines). You can get quite a decent rocket to low orbit. Then you can refill it at your leasure (if you have docking ports on it).

Having trouble getting it to work. I unpack the archive. I copy the "SelectRoot" folder from the "GameData" folder that is created into the "GameData" folder in my KSP_osx folder. Then a relaunch. I load a saved rocket (it works in the VAB, right?) and left-shift/left-control/left click (it is the same control key as on a Mac, right, not some different "PC control key"?) and.... Nothing happens.

I've had some like launching a booster and getting up to orbit by pumping fuel around rather than staging. I get as big a rocket I can to orbit (empty or not). Then I just refill it with other missions. It is likely assembling a rocket in orbit, but without the rocket being so darn wobbly (I use one set of couplers to stick the payload up top). Then I can stage it properly as I use it.. Here is the booster I just used on its way round trip to Jool. The part below the couplers was attached to my station until full, then I just attach the payload part in orbit and off I go!

I understand. I don't to return the experiments, I can collect that data from them and get full science. But I can't reuse them without the Science Lab.

I have a lander with a mystery goo container and a materials bay. Its a manned mission where the astronauts are coming back, but the lander isn't. If I used "Take Data" to move the data from the goo and bay to the capsule, and leave the goo and bay behind but return the capsule, do I get full science?

Thanks for the info. One clarification... "Your ship will not blow up if you land in the ocean. It will blow up if it lands on where the land is suppose to be. Switching between map mode and camera view may fix the issue when it does appear." Here are you referring to Kerbin or Jool? It sounds like you are talking about how to deal with the texture bug?

I dropped a probe into Jool. As it neared zero altitude (I assume Jool doesn't really have a surface?) a black hole opened up under my probe. Then everything went black before the ship exploded. Now I assume it isn't possible to land on Jool. But this going black was similar to something that happened to a mission parachuting down on Kerbin (black come up from the bottom of the screen and filled the screen and the ship exploded) that I assume to be some sort of bug. So I thought I would ask if on Jool it is suppose to be that way (2001 reference or something).

I almost never use radial burns. I think that is because I don't fully appreciate what they are good for. Does anyone know of any good explanations or tutorials on what they do and are good for?