Norcalplanner

I like the look of this mod, but I've been unable to do any science with it so far. I'm running RSS, and tried pointing the Fungeye (in the orbit specified by a contract) at the Moon, Mars, and Venus, with both the level 1 and then the level 2 wide angle camera, and I got an error message in the upper left corner. Is this a known problem and/or an RSS incompatibility?

I think there's now a way to do it in MJ; I'll try it tonight.

Like many others, an accidental EVA during reentry. With DRE installed. Just a little "pffft" and cloud of smoke, then Dangas Kerman was gone. I think he missed his calling as a drummer for Spinal Tap...

SpaceY and SpaceY Expanded have great engines and SRBs.

MaxQ isn't much of an issue in stock KSP. It's my understanding that this is more important in FAR. In stock, the rockets are built so strongly that there's little point in throttling down. I'm regularly going 700-800 m/s at 10 km. One thing to keep in mind - ignore the heating visual effects on ascent. Unless you actually have thermometers popping up on your parts, there's no need to slow down. The benefit in reducing gravity losses far outweighs any minor increase in aero losses. Here's a video of a good ascent profile done by Maccallo as part of my Cheap and Cheerful rocket payload challenge back in 1.0.5. Not exactly a gravity turn per se, and shallower than most ascents, but it gives you an idea of speeds and angles for an efficient launch. There's a significant difference between attitude and prograde vector after the SRBs are dropped because of the nature of the challenge (maximizing payload and minimizing cost) and the low TWR of the upper stage, but only after the craft is out of the worst of the atmosphere (above 30 km).

Speaking for myself, I found that RSS with RO was just too much. Instead, I'm currently having a lot of fun with RSS and SMURFF. I've also decided to use stock career contracts (with some contract packs), but with funds bumped up to 250% to account for the larger rockets needed in RSS. I've also decided that I'm not a fan of procedural parts, so I'm not using them. Instead, I've got most of NecroBones' and Nertea's mods installed. Somehow, being limited by a fixed (but still large) parts pallette just seems to get the creative juices flowing better for me.

Thanks. This might be just what I'm looking for.

Effectively, yes. It will take less delta V to get to orbit with a proper gravity turn and ascent profile.

Gravity losses are much higher than aero losses in KSP. The adage is that vertical velocity is temporary, but horizontal velocity is yours to keep. Maximizing horizontal velocity is the key to an efficient ascent. To do this, the craft should tip to the east as soon as possible based on the TWR of the rocket. For a high-TWR rocket, this means starting the turn at no more than 40 m/s. For a lower TWR rocket, this means waiting until you're going 70+ m/s. Your rocket should never be pointing more than five degrees off the prograde marker as long as you're below 30 km in altitude.

Does anyone know of an existing mod with RCS blocks which are smaller and lighter than the stock ones? I'm finding a need for them on very small craft where the mass and thrust of the stock blocks is too much. A quick Internet search and forum search didn't yield any helpful results. This is for an RSS career game, using SMURFF (not RO) where every ounce counts.

Turns out the easiest thing to do to train a Kerbal in RSS is to briefly travel outside of Kerbin's SOI. With 2 experience points for orbiting Kerbin, and 6 more for going interplanetary (even if only for half an hour), a Kerbal can be brought up to level 2 at a reasonable Delta V cost. Because there's only one moon in Kerbin's SOI, there's no way to get to level 3 without visiting another planet or installing a training/experience mod.

Z-100 and Z-1k are the best in my book. My opinion of the Z-1 k is pretty much identical to Snark's. However, since I didn't have to mod it, I'm also partial to the Z-100 for small satellites. These two batteries are also the cheapest per EC in career mode.

Does anyone know what the modifiers are for Kerbal experience in RSS? I'm looking to level up some Kerbals and am trying to figure out the most cost/time/delta V effective way to get them to levels 2 and 3. Obviously planting a flag on the Moon and returning will get everyone to level 2, but it's a lot to keep heading down to the surface and back all the time.

You can also disable the ports for pitch, roll, and yaw, so they'll only be used for translation while docking. That way you can leave RCS on the whole time while docking, but still rely solely on reaction wheels for attitude changes.

I'm currently running an RSS career with SMURFF at 1.0 lever and having a blast. My previous career was a 6.4x scale game using Sigma Dimensions, for which a 0.5 lever seemed appropriate. It's kind of weird - I had tried RSS/RO in the past, but didn't enjoy it all that much, in part because I'm a NecroBones mod enthusiast and his stuff doesn't have RO configs. Now I'm using RSS with SMURFF but without RO, and I'm finding it very enjoyable. And I get to use the mods I know and love, with improved stats thanks to SMURFF.

Randazzo, Have you considered providing lower thrust versions of any of these engines, similar to the old Impulse and Big Impulse? I found that with the older version of the mod, having a 40 kN 1.25m engine and a 120 kN 2.5m engine was the most valuable part of the mod. It enabled lower thrust engines in a larger form factor, helpful for transfer stages or unmanned probes. Now all the sizes and masses for vacuum operation are very comparable to stock. I fully agree that bigger bells should be included, but a lot of the value in these engines was a form factor that eliminated the need for fairings while still allowing lower TWRs in upper stages.

To get a 225 ton payload into orbit with an SSTO rocket, it'll need to be huge. In my experience, a single Mammoth SSTO can lift about 36 tons to LKO, so you're looking at 8 of them for the payload you're talking about. Since I last did this a few versions ago, I have no idea what reentry heating would be like these days with an unshielded rocket. Another thing to consider would be to go with a recoverable core and disposable SRBs - adding some cheap thrust at liftoff will greatly reduce your gravity losses and allow the rest of the lifter to be smaller and cheaper.

In the book "Skunk Works", Ben Rich (who headed up Lockheed's Skunk Works after Kelly Johnson retired) gives a really specific example - in a turn at altitude, it's possible for the outer wingtip to be in a mach buffet, while the inner wingtip is in a stall buffet. Crazy!

NecroBones, I just wanted to drop a note to say thanks for this mod. I've used many of your other mods for a long time now, but somehow I never added this one until a few weeks ago. The whole time I was using SpaceY and Fuel Tanks Plus, I kept finding myself designing rockets that use the FTP tanks so I could avoid the mismatched colors and steel barrel aesthetic of the stock tanks. Now that I've installed this, I can once again use stock tanks and make them match whatever the design scheme is for that particular rocket. Well done!

If I had to have three mods, it would be MechJeb, SpaceY, and Kerbal Joint Reinforcement. Enhanced Nav Ball isn't needed anymore, most of the stock bug fixes got incorporated into the game after they hired Claw, and the functionality of Trajectories has been incorporated into MechJeb (along with the transfer window planner). Other mods which are small but helpful include Portrait Stats and Landing Height Indicator. For parts, I'm drawn mostly to Necrobones' and Nertea's work.

Music (primarily bass and keys), complicated board games, poker, slower paced computer games (Civ, EU IV, KSP, XCOM 2), and travel.

1 hour for a challenge back in 0.90. The idea was to see how fast you could go before leaving Kerbin's SOI.

If we're talking stock, then it has to be the Poodle. I end up using that more than any other engine across my line of craft, most typically in an orbital insertion / transfer stage. It's also cheap, which is very helpful in career. Terrier and Kickback are in second and third - my favorite Mun lander design includes a Terrier beneath a Rockomax-16, and I abuse the cheap thrust provided by the Kickback in most of my launchers as soon as it becomes available.

Looks really good. I'll give this a try since my 6.4x scale game is getting a bit stale. Any thoughts on SMURFF use with this? I'm thinking that 0.4 lever might work well. Then again, I've also been wanting to try Kerbal Research and Development, which doesn't work well with SMURFF, so maybe this is the time to make the switch.

I'll add one point which hasn't been brought up yet - horizontal location of the boosters on the rocket. If you're only using two radial booster stacks, place them on the N and S sides of the rocket to minimize any aerodynamic effects from your rocket being slightly above or below prograde on ascent. If you have three radial stacks, place the initial stack (the one you're controlling with the mouse) on the E side of the rocket. If you have 4 booster stacks, place them on the NW, NE, SW and SE sides of the rocket.