TrooperCooper

Great mod! Thanks for your work! I have a question though. I put a science station up at Duna (somehow I always end up at that red dustball). But the contract menu doesnt spit out any science missions for Duna. Am I just unlucky and need to keep clicking? Or is Duna supposed to not be science-worthy... I keep getting plenty of Ike contracts. Maybe I'll just push the station to over there... EDIT: nvm, I just installed the new version and got a contract for Duna right away.

Deployed the core of my science station in a low Duna orbit. IPT-1 tanker coming in to transfer whats left in its tanks before de-orbiting... Then with the next transfer window, Bob came to deliver the command section of the station along with a bunch of scientists and crew. Here they are about to enter the atmosphere during their 2nd aero-braking pass... A little later, they arrived at the station and released the delivered module... ...which then was installed on the tower... Station is now awaiting more scientists and the first experiments. Bob did his job here and is heading home to pick up more stuff...

Landed on Duna and Ike... ...using the Explorer configuration of the Pelican SSTO. After thats been done successfully, I further improved the tanker version of the spaceplane - now able to lift 7k units of fuel and appropriate oxydizer into LKO. Preparing what will become the core of my Duna science station and fueling it up for the trip...

KW Rocketry Griffon Century still sounds better on start up!

Awesomesauce! \o/

Nah, the Kerbal way of getting it out the VAB is to attach a crapload of boosters to the building and lift it off the rocket... then roll the vessel to the pad. Nice job.

"Time to ascending / descending node" in target-mode not going to come back in 1.XX?

See ya arround!

By selecting any part other than your root part (usually the pod you place at the very beginning of the design), you will always select EVERYTHING from this part on (the one you selected) away from your root part. Thats why re-assigning your root part is so handy. It basically allows you to select everything after you are done designing your subassembly.

Maybe this helps: Sidenote: you wont get this done this easily without the SelectRoot mod.

This exactly. You build your probe the way you want it. At the bottom of it you prolly will have some sort of engine. Now you take any part you can attach below it and put it there,... say a fuel tank. Next you use the SelectRoot mod and make that fuel tank your root part. Then you can grab your probe by clicking on the engine above the current root part (the fuel tank) and throw it into subassemblies, to connect it to your lifter next. Just load your lifter design and pull the probe from subassemblies. Then stick it by its engine on top of your lifter.

Dont care!

Interplanetary you say? Well, lets see... here are some of mine... The Schwalbe. An older orbital crew-exchange plane with very limited range. Good enough to bring some Kerbals into orbit or back down though. The Astro Liner. A spaceplane to ship modular cargo and rovers arround. Development halted though since I was not very happy with the limmited capacity of the tail-ramps. Rear-view with a demo-rover inside: The Crossfire is an orbital passenger ship like the Schwalbe. Slightly better performance, capacity and completly heat-shielded though. The Crossfire II received additional tanks, a front-winglet and a redesigned main-wing to carry the extra-weight. Thus, this upgraded version is able to make the trip to Duna from the KSC runway. And if one uses aero-braking, might be able to come back without refuel as well. And my current main workhorse is the Pelican modular cargo spaceplane. It can lift more than 40 tons (still havent found the upper limit) from the KSC runway into orbit and straight into a Duna orbit as well. I havent done it yet, but the dV numbers indicate it. And with aero-braking it should have even more range. Though, for safety reasons I personally always prefer to completly refuel after the launch. The Pelican can be used in many different configurations, such as... a multi-landing explorer, with a loaded processing lab and a fully operational lander to explore orbital bodies: a long range orbital science configuration, with all kinds of experiments and plenty of interplanetary range after LKO refueling (something like 4500 dV or so): a self-propelled manned rover carrier, should be good enough for Duna,... tested on the Mun so far: or a simple tanker configuration, lifting 42 tons in the cargo-bay plus further fuel in the hull-tanks: and of course one can always just throw the random stuff from part-testing contracts into the cargo bay and grind money with a cheap lifting system:

While I wait for the next Duna transfer window, the time was used to test another mission concept. Grabbed a Fine Print contract and the Pelican was loaded accordingly to try out KISAs first rover mission... Jeb was happy to get back into space. Rendezvous with the IKSS again... To fuel up after launch... Then Jeb and Bob headed for the Mun... After attaining orbit, the cargo bay was opened... And the rover released into space... It descended towards the surface... And landed near the mission area... Grabbing some science on the side... Then it was racing time... A few minutes later it seemed like the contract was completed. But I made the mistake of taking it for granted and did not actually check the contract menu. Later on it turned out one waypoint-visit was still missing... The rover launched back into orbit as the taxi was about to pass overhead... Hello again... This thing is almost to bulky... Especially with the additional tank in the back... Eventually, docking was achieved... Then Bob had to do the dirty work of strutting the rover back up... Even though he did it in record time, he didnt look very happy out there. Or maybe that was the reason why he hurried up a lot. After a last inspection, the cargo bay was closed... And Jeb and Bob headed home...

Hey! That worked! I must have alt-clicked. Thanks a lot!

Anyone know of a work-arround to keep struts within a sumbassembly from loosing their connection when placed? I created a basic self-propelled rover and wanted to put it into my spaceplane. Unfortunately all struts are gone now and strutting it within there without mirroring both ends of the rover would prolly lead to assymetry problems.

You might wanna take a look at the BTSM-Mod, which draws out the techtree and gameplay progression. Though its still beeing ballanced for 0.24 afaik...

Foreign exchange rates are driven by many.... many many factors. Political / military power are just two amongst them. Other drivers are things like productivity, inflation rate, interest rates and other central bank interventions, foreign trade ballances, and... not to forget... *gasp* speculation. Under ideal circumstances, the foreign exchange rate between currencies would ensure that you in Poland would have to work just as many hours to buy a theoretical polish product as you would have to work in Poland as well to buy a theoretical identical foreign product (simplified speaking). Thus, trade ballances would even out. But thats just textbook economic theory. Reality contradicts the assumption of free financial markets ballancing trade flows.

Performed another mission concept test with the Pelican, this time in a long range orbital science configuration. Almost 4500 dV out of LKO after orbital refueling. Could almost make the trip to Jool... maybe with a little aerobraking. Though, I dunno how well that goes with spaceplanes... Also improved the planes tanker configuration.

The reason is simple... THEY have been visiting Tylo...

Thats time-travelling The Pelican taking off to perform orbital tests in preparation of a new mission setup... Ten minutes later, it is about to make the last hop into space... After circularization into orbit, the crew opens the cargo-bays... Jebediah going on EVA to inspect the cargo and make sure it didnt get damaged during the ascent. It consists of an exploration lander and a mobile processing lab to allow cleaning out the landers experiment-canisters. Thus, this setup should allow a super cheap multi-landing exploration mission to Duna and later on to other orbital bodies... After boarding the lander, Jeb pulled it out of the bay... ...and performed a series of bay-internal docking tests. Once that was done, he had to tie the craft back into the bay with struts again . Final inspection of the re-mounted lander, making sure all struts are linked correctly. Mission control said that internal wobbling of heavy cargo would not improve the flight characteristics of the Pelican SSTO... Then it was time to head for a rendezvous with the tanker IPT-1. The Pelican handed over 25 tons of fuel to loose some weight before re-entry... Jeb and Bill entering the atmosphere on their way back home, all air brakes open... Descending into the beautiful sunrise... Fried Pelican? I wonder how that tastes. KSP runway in sight, still gliding... Incoming to land... After a nearly perfect landing (didnt have to fire the engines once since entering the atmosphere) the crew inspected the cargo for a last time. Yup... everything still there. Struts are able to hold it during the landing. After this orbital test with a non-fueled lander, the next step will be a test-landing on the Mun to make sure everything works as planed before the real mission to Duna... EDIT: note to self: cargo-bay needs some internal lights. EVA-strutting inside a dark bay is pure horror...

Ignition at 0.57 seconds Or during the real countdown at 2:40 shortly afterwards...

The complementary tool to do that is the precise node mod. See here. When you have that mod installed, that little editor window comes up everytime you create a maneuver node. You can then edit the node according to the data from alexmoon. Could be that mechjeb can do the same thing, but I have never tried that mod, so I dunno.

http://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/ shows you ideal transfer options at any given point in time. Just click on the dV transfer-plot according to your desired launch time and see the data on the right. It also makes clear, that missing the ideal transfer to Moho will rapidly increase dV requirements. So its no suprise you cant find worse but still acceptable transfers to there. Eve is a little easier though...