FleshJeb

@Lirtosiast I just replied to your PM with a novel. I should have checked your baseline level of knowledge first. As I said, expect to double the landing dV--It really starts running away below TWR 1.5. I'm not likely to finish my KRPC CAL script anytime soon. I WAS going to do some testing with Throttle Controlled Avionics to do consistent, repeatable piloting.

I guess I'm forked then.

Nicely engineered mission. I like it.

if one unit is divided by a time unit, it represents a rate at which something happens. If you walk 5 kilometers in one hour, you walked 5 km per hour (written as 5km/hr = 5 km ÷ 1 hr). If you know you're walking at that speed, how far do you walk in two hours? (5km / hr) x 2hr = 10 km because the hours cancel. It's called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimensional_analysis You can sometimes figure out how to solve a problem by looking at the units you expect to get, and looking at the pieces. If you want to know how fast 5km per hour is in meters per second: Convert the distance: One-thousand meters happen per one kilometer, so: 5km / hr * 1000m / km = 5000m/hr, because the kilometers cancel. Convert the time: One hour happens per sixty minutes, and one minute happens per sixty seconds, so: (5000 m / 1 hr) * (1 hr / 60 min) * (1 min / 60 sec) = (5000m * 1 hr * 1 min) / (1 hr * 60 min * 60 sec). The hours cancel, the minutes cancel, and you're left with (5000 m / 3600 sec) = 1.39 m/s

Scott Manley's youtube channel really is the best teacher, but this and the Intermediate and Advanced are pretty good: https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Tutorial:Basic_Rocket_Design The whole wiki has some great info, even though some is outdated. Resources on the sidebar here: https://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalAcademy/ Or just ask specific questions here. We like helping.

I feel privileged to be the one to hand down this wisdom of the ages. Please pass it on to someone else in need when you see an opportunity:

@EpicSpaceTroll139 I had a similar rig a long time ago, and somebody pointed out to me that you can just stick a probe core on the tank and read the pitch straight from KER or MJ. MUCH more precise that way.

@devikwolf This will be worth checking out, even though it's not currently updated.

That's new, it used to be "...As a result of its small size, it's usable for transferring resources, but not crew."

I am out of likes for the day. Fantastic work! I very much need to catch up on this thread.

I thought the general consensus was that Kerbals "shouldn't" be able to pass through Jr. docking ports. Having it on an airlock is just weird.

Tried making an aesthetic cousin to the Bulldog Mk1. Got the 4th iteration to SSTO, AND have a separate VTOL system. It was pretty crappy, but I DID learn that you can abuse all 4 nodes on a service bay and still get drag occlusion. I MIGHT revisit it and try for iteration 5. This will require me to clip the heck out of a bunch of Big-S Wing Strakes to improve the L/D ratio and the mass fraction. I also have to find an open node to sneak a NERV on to.

I have an ulterior motive for suggesting that course of action in that order.

Fantastic work @oyster_catcher and @lushr. Makes my ambitions for a Constant Altitude Landing program look like child's play.

Practice in KSP first. https://krpc.github.io/krpc/. Follow the "getting started" guide, and the excellent tutorials. The guide tells you how to install Python (a real-world programming language). Python ALSO runs on some Raspberry Pi and Gumstix models, which both have good form-factors for fitting into a model rocket. The SAS built into KSP is already quite "smart", because it runs in a simulation and not the real world. It already knows where it is and where it's heading. However, it will allow you to play with your ideas in the same language that you'd use on a real model rocket. EDIT: I got ninja'd by Green Baron

Dude. 2008 4x2 Double Cab with TRD Rugged Trail Package. It's FUN. Why yes, that IS an A/C extension cord running from the inverter port in the bed through the rear slider. In a fun coincidence, this is from a trip to do the land surveying for the Tesla supercharging stations in Mt Shasta City, CA and Detroit, OR. @Pawelk198604 My mother also thought I'd never be able to drive a manual transmission--I've owned several. Before you make any decisions, have a friend with an old car help you practice in an empty parking lot. You will inevitably run into situations while driving where you'll be overwhelmed by sensory input; it happens to everybody. If you are aware of your limits and the limits of your car, and plan accordingly, you will be OK.

What everyone else said: In the meantime, Editor Extensions has an "AS: Grandparent: All" button. Although I've noticed it seems to hit the physics engine mighty hard--Possibly on the order of N^2 calcs.

Do the trim controls affect gimbals before you light the engines? (Alt-W,S,A,D,Q,E. Alt-X to recenter.) "Control From Here" can be set via action group now--No clicking necessary. Changing your tank setup would definitely help.

This make me realize how much I miss the old aesthetic--Those ramp intakes are COOL. I'm nostalgic for the days when "Mainsail" was a right and proper name for an engine fit for a king. Digression aside: Only you would bother to add details like steel plates over the windows, and the jetpack twitch. I've been trying and failing for years to make a satisfying-looking bug-miner, but tonight, I am going to make myself a Snoopy for 1.3.1. "Cupcake videos mostly come out monthly...mostly." Don't make us probe you into doing our bidding for ep 3. ;-)

KER isn't going to give you that much more information specific to this problem. Although I've always used both it and MechJeb for various readouts. You're probably correct, it's been about a year since I flew anything that had gimballed engines in space.It should settle out after the initial mis-torque (provided that it's small enough). TCA is a super-complex thrust-balancer. Eventually I'll get around to learning it. MechJeb has a hover mode, but it's not fantastic. I think it's the Translatron. I try to push MJ to it's limits to find out what they are, and they can be fairly narrow without getting into PID tuning. So I try to design my craft to operate within the limits of what MJ can do well and reliably. Which means limiting the gimbal range on my engines and keeping my TWR within reasonable bounds (>2 <3) by limiting the thrust sliders, or the max acceleration in the Utility settings. EDIT: You can also get into automated control via KOS or KRPC.

Since other people have given you solutions to the original problem: I would put the bomb-bay closer to the Center of Mass (CoM) of the plane. Otherwise, it may become unflyable when you drop your payload. Perhaps between two of the shorter tanks instead of on one end of the long tank. If you don't already know how to turn on the CoM indicator, it's the one next to the cost of the plane on the bottom left of the screen.

1 & 2) RCS Build Aid will show you all kinds of uneven torques for both dry and full tanks, and recalculate in real time. Kerbal Engineer Redux will show you the total amount of torque, but I've never looked at that readout. What I do in these situations is use Editor Extensions in combination with RCS Build Aid to precisely rotate my engines to their gimbal extent to see what effect that has. RCS-BA also has a gimbal submenu that I haven't really used. 2) In a well-designed craft, trying to hold the SAS WILL result in thrust through the CoM (plus aero forces). As long as the current CoM is within the limits of your gimbals to put the thrust vector through. 2 & 3) Throttle Controlled Avionics is THE gold standard of controlling "wacky" craft. It's got a pretty steep learning curve that I haven't put the effort into mastering yet. I definitely need to.

We went through this with the AVC mod, didn't we? As I recall, Squad made them put in an explicit opt-in.

Occam's Razor is the first principle by which you should judge an idea. Lots of people are privacy-insensitive. Wrongly, I think. We know that at least one of the posters is just a normal dude, and I happen to disagree with him on this issue, but I will happily continue to donate to his Patreon. KSP management has done several things the wrong way, for YEARS--I'd classify this as only the THIRD most significant ETHICAL snafu in my memory. Most importantly, conspiracy theory will get the thread locked.