Algomeysa

so say I'm in Kerbin orbit, and I want to get in solar orbit ---- but clockwise, that is, opposite the direction most of the planets are traveling. What should be my approach? And speaking of solar orbits.... when you're in orbits that last hundreds of days, burning exactly at apoapsis probably isn't that important, it's more forgiving of mistakes. Is going at full throttle a mistake? Should I be starting earlier and just going at a fraction of full throttle, is that going to be more fuel-conserving?

thanks, LordFerret. This time I made sure to blast the tanker into a completely different orbit, and then I made sure SAS was off, and now I seem to be able to timewarp without the ship flying apart. Whew ---- if after all that work, it turned out that docking with a refueling tanker made my ship structurally unsound, I was going to be very very annoyed...

And thanks for the tips on docking, all. After a lot of effort, I did manage to dock. I got within 2 kilometers, killed my velocity. Closed the gap with the RCS H key, mostly. Sometimes with a little regular thrust. Then I kept killing my velocity. I'm sure I was doing it pretty inefficiently, and I was running on fumes. So I switched to the fuel tanker, turned on its auto-grabber, and did the same from that end. Eventually, I did manage to dock. Transferring fuel is amazingly satisfying. I managed to fill up my main tank plus the two boosters I never jettisoned. Then I separated the ships, and moved the tanker to a safe distance. Just one problem.....my beautifully-refueled ship, I'm just drifting, waiting for the optimum place to begin my burn.... So.....I started time-warp to speed things up a bit.... ...and....and.....my ship instantly explodes?! Why?!

So I notice in 0.24.2 the monolith near the KSP is flush with the ground, whereas in 0.23.5 it was floating off the ground, you could walk under it. You can also walk right through it. I can't remember, could you walk through the monoliths in 0.23.5? The one near KSC2 (ruins) was flush with the ground, so I think I would have noticed if you could walk right through it, but maybe I just never tried.

Thanks for the tips, all. I tried to utilize your advice ---- and, I also realized, sometimes it's just being more patient, slight differences can add up if you don't mind sped-up orbits for several days. Of course, if KSP ever institutes air/food/water limits, that might be a problem.... Now I'm within a few hundred meters. I just have to figure out how to dock.... back to more youtube videos. ------------------- In this instance, what I'm trying to do is dock in low-orbit with a refueling station, in order to gas up for an eventual Kerbin escape into solar orbit. Maybe I should be aiming higher; put the refueling station higher, somewhere between low orbit and the Mun, and then dock with it.

Ok, Ive figured out how to get into a pretty much identical orbit as the thing I want to dock with, I'm just trailing it by 15 kilometers, but, despite reading various online tutorials, watching youtube videos, etc. I'm still not getting it: How do I close the gap without completely ruining my orbital characteristics? When those "Intersection 1", "intersection 2" lines come up, which way should I be burning my engines to close the deal? How close do I need to be before I go into "docking mode?"

A weird bit: Due to an unfortunate choice in where I F5 saved the game, I was stuck with slamming into the Mun at about 500 meters/second. That's why the ship and other 2 Kerbals were destroyed. But I had my Kerbal go EVA and then cling to the outside of the ship. The results here were interesting. Most of the time he'd get killed on impact. But about 1 time in 20 he'd actually hit the ground and somehow survive. And then, sometimes he'd bounce into a suborbital flight of just him. Usually he'd still die when he came back down, but sometimes, with enough EVA jetting, or just plain dumb luck, he'd actually survive hitting the Mun again. That's how I made Munfall.

Thanks for the tips, all. Today, on this 45th anniversary of Apollo 11, I managed to land a Kerbal on Mun. There's certainly room for improvement; something of a Pyrrhic victory. Spacecraft and moonbuggy destroyed, 2 other Kerbals killed. Stranded at 12 north 95 east, and quite a long walk from anywhere interesting. But magnificent desolation!

Ok, pretend I'm a Kerbal Kaveman, who's learned just enough about orbital mechanics to be dangerous. I've figured out how to get into orbit, and then, by aiming at 90 degrees and firing my engines, to lengthen my orbit until I've got a highly elliptical orbit, with an apogee that's in the 11.5 million meter or so range. So it's Mun crossing. If I'm a patient person, who cuts engines and time-warps, my orbit, which is blue, and the Mun's orbit, which is white.... since my Kerbals never run out of air or food and such, if I'm willing to wait until the number of days lengthens to 50, 100, etc..... eventually, there's a point where my orbit turns yellow. Is this telling me that I'm in the Mun's sphere of influence. At this point, should I be turning to 270 degrees, and firing rockets to slow me down? Is that how I'll achieve Munar orbit?

So I've been playing with that Kerbin Cup mod. More details here, but it seems when you attach a gigantic soccer ball atop a space capsule in lieu of a parachute, it makes it pretty much impervious --- you can hit the ground going pretty darn fast and your Kerbals can still live to tell the tale. I launched a gigantic soccer ball atop a KerbalX rocket to the Kerbin Antarctic. About 1600 meters from impact I swiveled so the soccer ball would take the brunt of it: And, somewhat to my surprise, everybody got out unscathed: "WE CHOOSE TO SEND A GIGANTIC SOCCER BALL TO THE KERBIN ANTARCTIC AND DO THE OTHER THINGS! NOT BECAUSE THEY ARE EASY, BUT BECAUSE THEY ARE HARD!" So, will this work for a Mun or Duna landing instead of retro-rockets/parachutes?

The crew from Alien (1979) Kerbalized. Done with The Kerbalizer (Full $2 version) with a few additions. Kane, Lambert, Dallas, Parker, Ripley, Brett, Ash. Ok, this didn't turn out quite as I'd hoped, but I am kind of proud of Harry Dean Kerbal's Hawaiian shirt. And Yaphet Kerbal is rockin' that blue headband! Precedent: in the 2011 movie Paul, the E.T. crew is an analogue for the Nostromo crew.

So, in case The Kerbalizer (full $2 version https://kerbalspaceprogram.com/kerbalizer.php) gets any further update: The option to just have the .PNG file have a transparent background would be nice...

well, how about this underwater wall from this January 2012 post. I'm not sure where that is though; supposedly "near the KSC", but I haven't spotted a section of coastline that really matches that.

Bathysphere: Pretty cool. Before I ever started using the sub, I first sent some Kerbals out to that deepest part by rocket, and by boat, and then had them jump in the water and act as living buoys. (This has a practical reason; when I was later driving the sub along the ocean floor, looking out the cockpit, when I got to within 85 kilometers or so I could "see" the Kerbals on the Heads Up Display, and so use them to navigate closer). But when I was setting that up I somehow did something I haven't been able to recreate: when I F5 quicksaved, and then later f9 loaded it, my boat sank like a stone, but the Kerbal was thrown clear, and he bobbed on the surface, with his boat 1.4 kilometers beneath his feet. If I could figure out how to do this on demand, you could sink your own boat as a means of depth measurement. When I tried to switch the viewpoint to the sunken vessel, it immediately began slowly rising. It hit the surface of the ocean so hard it actually shot completely out of the water, and then more or less disintegrated when it came back down and hit the ocean surface again. Meanwhile, I made an interesting discovery: As suggested, I posted this over in Mission Reports.

So, long story short, I've been experimenting with subs, diving on the deepest part of the Kerbin Ocean, trying to be Kerbal James Cameron. More about that in this thread rather than repeat myself. But I made an interesting discovery --- I'd heard previously about that smiley face on the ocean floor, that was discovered with MapSat (Apparently MapSat doesn't work with 0.23.5, but there's plenty of high-res maps people have created, like this one). I've seen some claims you can see the smiley face from orbit, but I can't manage that myself, and I don't see any screenshots, so I'm skeptical of that one. But it turns out the deepest part of the Kerbin ocean is located in one eye of the smiley face: So I figured it's useless to really look on the seabed when you're down there, it'd be like standing on the Nazca lines in Peru and trying to get the big picture. So I tried this: From my position at the deepest part of the ocean (yellow circle above), I went east to 280 east longitude. Then I turned south and went from 30 S latitude to 40 S latitude, taking depth measurements every quarter-latitude. What I found is this: You can clearly see on this graph where I crossed the upper and lower lips of the smiley face, deeper ocean rifts between 1100 and 1300+ meters deep. Pretty neat. To be clear, I'm cheating out the wazoo on this, using unlimited fuel. Phase 2 is to manage this without cheating; design a sub that can just be kerplopped in there at the deepest part and make a stable descent. Not quite sure how I'd get it there though --- either by rockets, or maybe somehow making a big barge-transport boat, rolling the sub onto it, and transporting it all the way to 28 south 276 east and rolling it overboard...

Huh, so it appears, being in that lowest point on Kerbin (1388 meters below sea level, 28 54 3 S 276 52 41 E), I'm already atop that big smiley face. Specifically in one of the eyes: http://s22.photobucket.com/user/planettom/media/ksp/kerbinlowpoint_zps2a447828.jpg.html Seafloor map taken from the image made by BradburyMan using the Mapsat mod in June 2013, as detailed in this reddit thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/1h852m/i_took_62_million_isa_mapsat_points_and_converted/ So I think the next step is go east to the 280 E longitude line, then head south, passing latitude 30 S to 40 S, at which point I'll have passed over the two parts of the smiley, and see what can be seen. I mean, it's kind of like standing on a Nasca line in Peru, it's probably too big to tell a difference when you're atop it, but maybe I can tell by elevation change where the upper and lower lip of the smile starts and stops, at it were.

Of course, except for the "Because it's there!" factor, there's not a lot to see, down there on the ocean floor. Which brings to mind another potential expedition: That spot on the ocean floor with the big smiley face, the one that shows up on that mapsat thing. (I've seen some claim that it can also be seen from orbit, but I haven't managed that, and I haven't seen any screenshots that support that). That's a bit west of this Lowest Point, I think. Might be interesting to take a sub down there and see what that looks like from the ocean floor.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Kerbal Kerbalmaps.com suggests that the lowest point on Kerbin (Kerbal homeworld) is longitude 83.1116 West/28.9050 South, 1391 meters deep in the ocean. I decided to be Kerbal James Cameron (Or if you're Old School, Jacques Piccard and Lt. Don Walsh in the bathyscape Triest, 1960, Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench). Those coordinates translate to 28 54 18 S 276 53 19 E. Step 1, I sent a few rocket flights and a boat out to those coordinates (I used a boat .craft file I found online, hydra speedboat), had some Kerbals jump out and tread water, and act as living buoys to mark the spot on the ocean surface. Step 2: Now, I didn't want to use any mods (But if you do want to try a submarine mod, I recommend the excellent Hooligan Labs submarine mod, now being maintained by JewelShisen here http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/53961-0-22-Hooligan-Labs-%28now-under-new-managment%29-Featuring-Airships-Subs-and-more) But instead, I chose this unmodded submarine designed by Squishumz in this reddit thread http://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/1cwao4/ Now, to be clear, I'm not using mods, but I am using the unlimited fuel cheat. Phase 2 will be to do this without using cheat codes. That submarine is good for exploring the ocean floor, but it works best when you start just off the beach and hug the ocean floor all the way down. It's a wheeled vehicle with a big rear rocket engine and 12 smaller ones pointing downwards. If you ever find yourself off the seabed, it's difficult to control, tends to do underwater loop-the-loops. So, yeah, I actually drove the thing into the ocean by the Kerbal Space Center at the equator and then drove it underwater nearly 29 degrees south, 1/12th of the way around the world (I did this at 4x warp). That sounds like a long way, and it is, but it's only about 314 kilometers, or the Kerbal Jules Verne novel 57 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA. Once you get down the sloping continental shelf (I recommend going west off the runway and aiming for the beach which is just where the sloping mountain meets the ocean --- if you go east off the runway the continental shelf seems to be a lot steeper), just aim 185 degrees or so and get ready for a long ride underwater. Before too long, you end up going between about 975 meters depth and 1200 meters depth. Up to 999 meters you can get a fairly normal view out your cockpit, at 1000 meters the view gets a little funky, the sun seems to be shining through the planet (or at night, you can see stars through the planet). So it's better to switch your view to about midrange from above where you can still see the sea floor. The changes in depth are pretty mild when you're hugging the ocean floor --- there's no point where you have to worry about slamming into an underwater cliff or tumbling into a chasm or anything like that. At about 85 kilometers from the dive point was the first time it really went under 1200 meters depth. But at about 77 kilometers from the dive point the depth unexpected rises above 1000 meters again. Putting the Kerbals on the surface treading water at the dive point paid off at this point, because when you switch to cockpit view you can see 'em (I mean, you can see their location on the Heads Up Display), and it's easier to navigate towards them. At 4.4 kilometers from the dive point, the depth was finally below 1300 meters. Now, the deepest spot I could really find was 1386 meters (and that was in the submarine, which adds 2 meters from a Kerbal on the ground, so it was really 1388 meters deep). This was at 28 54 3 South 276 52 41 East. So close, but not exact, to the kerbalmaps.com (Or maybe that point is a similar depth; I couldn't get to that exact point...it's a bit hard to manuever down there). This sounds about right, it's 3 meters higher than kerbalmaps.com suggests (1388 versus 1391), but that works out, kerbalmaps has the highest point on Kerbal being 6761 meters, the Mount Everest of Kerbin as it were, but if you actually go there on 0.23.5 it's 6764 meters when you're a Kerbal on foot. ------------------ So, the next step, Phase 2, would be to manage this without using the unlimited fuel cheat, or at least to use it as little as possible. A differently designed submarine, one made to just plop in the ocean and go straight down, and be stable on the descent (So more of a bathyscape) would seem to the solution. The secret seems to be using the big orange fuel tanks (least bouyant thing in Kerbal engineering) and then put a lot of downward-facing rocket engines. Now, how the heck to get it 28 degrees south, I'm not sure. Maybe some sort of large barge-boat, you'd get the bathyscape on it with the brakes on, then drive the barge-boat to 28 degrees south (whether this can be done without unlimited fuel would be the trick), and then, roll the bathyscape over the side, fire the engines, have Voyage to the Bottom of the Kerbin Sea. So the goal would be: 1) Get the barge-boat with bathyscape to 28 S latitude, maybe with the fuel cheat, maybe not. 2) now with fuel cheat turned off, roll the bathyscape over the side and blast to the bottom. Any better ideas?

Alien vs. Kerbal http://planettom.tumblr.com/post/88165419544/alien-vs-kerbal Made, in part, with The Kerbalizer (full $2 version).

Well, I had to experiment. Here's what I learned. Having any sort of Hooligan Labs sub tech in a Kerbal universe seems to make all the Kerbals ocean-floor-walkable. That is, after loading up a HL Leviathan rover with a capsule attached, driving it to the beach, but not going in the water, I loaded up the non-HL sub, drove that to the beach. The Kerbal in it could get out on the beach and walk into the water onto the ocean floor and keep descending, so it would seem that the presence of HL sub technology causes all Kerbals to become less buoyant, regardless of whether they've been in a HL sub or exited underwater from one. As expected, even the ones that haven't been in the HL-sub-tech vehicle implode at the 600 meter deep mark. The non-HL sub, when driven under 600 meters, also implodes (whereas it doesn't in a game-universe with no Hooligan Lab sub tech). So I guess in my quest to be Kerbal James Cameron, and send a Kerbal down to the deepest part of the ocean (1391 meters deep), I'm going to have to stick with the non-Hooligan Labs tech, in a saved game where no vehicle with HL-sub-tech has been used.

I thought this was going to be a 6000+ meter peak, but it fell just short: On the continent southeast of KSC: 5946 meters 32 6 35 S 38 24 12 W

Heh, now I'm picturing using a HL sub to make myself ocean-floor-walkable then switching to one of the unmodded subs. Probably not possible because the latter need to be firing rockets at all times to stay under. Also, I guess if I then get out of the unmodded sub below 600 meters I'd still explode, having been made under-600 meter explode-able by the previous sub. Hmmm, if I use a HL sub to make myself ocean-floor-walkable, then walk up onto the beach on the surface, then back into the water, am I still ocean-floor walk-able? So many things to test...

I have noticed a weird thing while Kerbin mountain climbing on foot. Sometimes your Kerbal vanishes in a puff of smoke. Sometimes I think it's when you reach a slope too steep and you're effectively pressing against an immovable object, and after a certain amount it becomes fatal. Other times, I think it's when your descent becomes steeper and steeper until you're effectively in free-fall. But hey, if you can manage it in a rover, more power to you. Those two high peaks I've been to, have relatively gentle slopes, it's probably possible to on-foot or rover up 'em. Some peaks though ---- like, there's one just west of the KSC in the 5000 meter range, that is so steep I think it'd be almost impossible to get up it on foot or in a rover, I think you'd have to land on it. Starting at sea level, I wouldn't press as a requirement; Everest climbers don't do that (usually).

Ok, we'll make it more exclusive, the sixty-five-hundreder club. Here's me planting a flag on the highest peak on Kerbin: 6764 meters, 61 35 54 N 46 20 17 E. http://s22.photobucket.com/user/planettom/media/lj2014/kerbin-everestascent4_zpsd30ab287.jpg.html Then I found this one in the Kerbin Antarctic (Though I didn't get a screenshot): 6559 meters at 74 24 1 S 377 33 52 W (Why the program presents a coordinate like that 377 west, instead of subtracting 360 and just having it 17 West, I don't know). So that's my challenge: Get a screenshot of yourself planting a flag on another 6500 or above peak besides these two. You must provide the longitude/latitude in the format that the unmodded KSP does (i.e., not just a DD.DDDDD format from kerbalmaps.com) If there's no other 6500+ peak on Kerbin, than the highest above 6000 you can find.

So here's a weird thing. Outside of the HL Sub mod, I used this submarine design by squishumz: http://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/1cwao4/ It's mod-free. It's one of those bunch-of-rocket-engines pointing upward to get the craft underwater. And it works; I was able to drive along the ocean floor deeper and deeper until I was at a greater than 1000 meter depth. (I cheated on unlimited fuel to manage that, but I was more interested in seeing if I could get a vehicle that deep). (It gets a little funky, the cockpit view gets weird at a certain point, but if you view your craft from mid-range above, switch on your lights, you can get a decent view of the sea floor.) But...when I exit the craft, my Kerbal immediately bobs to the surface. However, when I do use the Hooligan Lab sub mod, with that Leviathan rover, with a capsule attached, I can have a Kerbal get out and walk the sea floor. Why is that, is there something in the HL mod that makes underwater Kerbals less buoyant, or does the neutral/negative buoyancy of the Leviathan rover somehow transfer to the exiting Kerbal, or....???