advil

Hey let me start first by saying this is a great mod and I'm excited to see where it goes. I've just added it to my game and added one of the star systems that was listed on the original post and it looks really cool. I would like to get a ship there if I could and go visit the surface of some of these new planets and moons if I could though. The problem I'm having right now is not that it takes ages to get to these other stars but that my ship always explodes before I can officially get into orbit of these distant stars. I waited for hours to get to Helios and once I was to the point I could bring the ship around and burn retrograde, it exploded. How do I get to these distant stars and not explode?

Are there any updates on this mod? Looks like the last post to the thread was January of this year and it's the end of November now. I'm running zero mods at the moment because most of the ones I enjoyed have turned into actual parts of the game already. What I really would like now is to travel to other star systems, having worked out best practices for long distance space travel within the game. I just want to make sure before I say goodbye to all of my current saves that things are going to work okay. The main concern I have right now besides if this mod will work with the latest updates to the game is that somebody mentioned that all of Jool's moons have been disrupted and I'll need those as I would plan to use them as my final refueling point before leaving the Kerbol system.

Can we make it an option in a future update maybe? If I'm going through the trouble of building a satellite, launching it and getting it into a very specific orbit, I want it to work like an actual satellite. I might add that resources on asteroids are just assumed it would seem. It just seems to be a rough percentage of the asteroid is resources and once those are gone you are left with an extremely lightweight asteroid. No scanning or anything is required. I guess I was sort-of hoping there would be a way to visualize this. I honestly was also expecting the asteroid to collapse once it was depleted, but since they don't I guess I'll make a sculpture out of them or something.

I was having the same problem from a polar orbit. It wasn't until I brought my altitude up closer to 70km that I was able to perform a scan. Also I wonder what the point is of being in a stable polar orbit when you don't need to complete a single orbit to get data for an entire celestial body. I guess I had expected it to be more like Kethane since that's clearly where the developers got the idea.

Another piece to the ISS puzzle. This page is tracking ATV-5's progress toward ISS. http://blogs.esa.int/atv/2014/07/29/track-atv-5-live/

What control module are you using that lets you store Several biomes worth of samples in order to return them to kerbin? If you could store an unlimited supply on a CM then there wouldn't be any need to use the lab to store experiments. That's my whole reason for using the lab, to store the large number of surface samples and various measurements. Any time I've tried to put a kerbal into a CM with multiple surface samples I'm told they won't all fit. So how is it you're doing this?

If anybody is interested in making visual of ISS in the night sky as it passes over or near your location I actually downloaded an iPhone app the other day that makes this quite easy. The app is free and it's called GoISSWatch. It will go off of your location and show you where ISS is in realtime. It also has a 3D map mode which utilizes your phone's compass and gyro to allow you to point your phone directly at ISS. I was able to confirm this just a few minutes ago and was delighted to note that it was actually quite bright in the night sky and was visible for around 50 seconds from where I stood. I was out in the courtyard where I work and the walls are pretty high so needless to say if you are someplace out in the open and perhaps higher up, you will be able to see it for a longer period of time. I'm curious if it will be possible also to spot ATV-5 as it gets closer to docking with ISS.

The process I have used in the past to make the science lab useful is as follows, it involves some trips up to an orbital and back down depending on how much science you want to bring home. I do not use the lab to broadcast experiments back to Kerbin, but instead it serves as a container to return them to the surface. So, I design A lightweight lander with the science equipment available, Make sure it has an accessible docking port, batteries, antenna, PVs, pretty much everything needed to land on a celestial body, and enough fuel capacity to move from low orbit to surface and back to low orbit. This then attaches to A two part orbital section. First a good size engine and a good amount of fuel, generally I like to use a Mainsail and a large orange rock-o-max tank for this, followed by a monoprope tank, battery, control module and Clamp-o-tron Senior, perhaps some surface PVs and RCS blocks for ease of movement. To that docking port is attached the mobile processing lab with only one Kerbal. This also has batteries and a control module, maybe some PVs and of course plenty of radial chutes toward the top end and landing struts at the bottom end, finally a small fuel tank and engine (I think you see where this is going). On top of that the lander is docked. Install enough ladder down the side so that the pilot of the lander can easily move from his CM to the lab to store experiments. From there the gathering of science is carried out as follows.. 1) Arrive at target celestial body and move to a stable low orbit 2) Deploy any retractable PVs on the science lab and Orbital 3) Un-dock the lander and move to the desired landing site / biome 4) transmit crew report once landed 5) Collect data from all attached scientific telemetry 6) Eva to the surface and collect a surface sample 7) Collect EVA report 8) While moving back to CM right click all scientific telemetry and remove experiments 9) Enter CM and store all experiments 10) Take off and set course for the orbital stage 11) Dock to orbital 12) EVA lander pilot and right click CM and select "Take experiments" 13) Continue EVA down to science lab and enter storing all experiments in the lab 14) While both Kerbals are inside the lab, broadcast any data that can be sent at 100% only 15) "Clean out" any goo canisters and science juniors to reset them 16) EVA pilot back to lander and reposition for next biome 17) Repeat. After you have exhausted this, return the whole thing back to Kerbin, detach and land your lander and recover the craft. Then detach and deorbit your mobile processing lab. If all goes well you will be able to recover this as well with all of its contained experiments. Please note that any impact to the mobile processing lab at greater speed than about 6-6.5 Meters per second will likely destroy it so make sure you have enough radial parachutes. Your tug still in orbit can either be trashed or re-fueled. I say no sense in deorbiting something that can be indefinitely repurposed. As far as putting the lab on the surface of the celestial body you plan to gather science from, I have done this as well and it doesn't save any time really. Not to mention your lander becomes huge. ..Thoughts?

I found that too, it seems like the tolerances for the part testing are really tight on a few of them. It's not as simple as "Go up, on your way back down, test this parachute" no, you have to be at a specific altitude and at a specific speed range. I finally lost my patience with those contracts and moved on to the more interesting and valuable contracts that actually allow for exploring other planets and moons where the science is more plentiful

Why not one set and a kerbal? Eva to the various measuring devices and remove data, store that in your CM and get more. If you still need more storage then add a mobile processing lab to your Orbital stage. Surely you have some sort of LEM in orbit if you've gone that far, otherwise how do you plan to get home? Recovered science is worth more and even if it's a 100% failure, if you've sent Bill, Bob and Jeb, they will reappear in your roster after a short while.

Here is a recording of the launch of ATV5 earlier today. http://www.esa.int/spaceinvideos/content/view/embedjw/436951

Hey guys I just wanted to share this link in case anybody is interested in watching the launch today, I work nights so I will probably miss this one. http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/

I had made a small satellite that disconnected from my lander module in orbit of Mun and had around 95% of it mapped when I clicked analyze data which yielded zero science and I did indeed have an antenna on the satellite so I was able to broadcast it but it didn't fill the contract objective of collecting data from Mun's orbit. A simple crew report was enough, however, to fulfill that portion of the contract. I just like having a map that I can reference from a lander or rover on the surface as it can make determining which direction to go to hit the next nearest biome a little faster. Though, on Mun it becomes apparent fairly quickly that all of the biggest craters and the poles are separate biomes.

I finally have a fail to add, was playing my new career mode save (New as of the update) and took contracts to explore Duna and Ike and so as not to run out of fuel I designed a Tug with it's own guidance, some batteries and PVs and a docking port and put that into low kerbin orbit. Then I designed a nice compact lander with all of the available science gathering telemetry I currently have access to and rendezvoused with my tug. Brought that to Duna and put it into a nice obit to gather orbital science data. It was after generating my crew report that I realized I had forgotten to put an antenna on it.. I managed to make two separate space craft work as one to get to Duna with plenty of fuel to spare and I forgot to put a freakin antenna on it... I could have gathered quite a bit more science had I been able to transmit things like crew reports, eva reports and some of the other repeatable tests. Instead I had to return to Kerbin with only the amount of science my control module could house. No big loss as I still cleared around 1200 science and was delighted to find that I could make it from the surface of Kerbin to the surface of Duna and back without having to fuel hack or reload quicksaves so I will use a similar design when I return. This time with an antenna and perhaps a slightly larger tug. just frustrating going all that way with such ease and forgetting the most basic of parts.

Where's the KSP mod to include contact binary asteroids into KSP? Seems they might offer a greater challenge to those wanting to intercept them.

To me the mods are really a double edged knife. On the one hand, there are so many mods that change aspects of the game and add new interesting bits to it, but on the other hand it is becoming more and more apparent to me that some mods are almost needed to give the game that little bit of extra realism it truly needs. I've given up on trying to build an SSTO space cargo plane because as it stands, mods are needed to make anything that big fly correctly. not to mention the clear obvious lack of wings and other bits that go together correctly. It sure would be nice though to be able to fly space station parts to orbit and recover the craft after landing back on kerbin.. Without using mods. The one mod that I actually have tried and enjoy and don't feel like I am cheating to have use of on my career mode save is the ScanSat mod. Because I can use it to map Mun and other celestial bodies I am visiting, but while I can make a usable satellite with it, at the current state of the mod, I can't use it to collect science data or complete any contract objective. So to that end, it only gives me a small reason to research the satellite parts and actually use them.

What he fails to mention is that you need to install mods to get space planes to fly correctly. Dev team hear me! This is the number one .24 fail. I shouldn't have to modify the game to make a stock portion of it work correctly.

It's actually not a bad thing to leave a Kerbal on Mun for an extended period, as you'll periodically get more contracts to do things at Mun. You may find that one day you have Jebedia standing there surrounded by several flags

Do you mind sharing your design? I've not had much luck or experience with space planes and this intrigues me.

Not enough remaining fuel for a powered landing?

I was able to prove on my own yesterday after pondering this question all night at work that if you attach a control module to the dropped section, along with parachutes it can, in fact, be recovered. At-least everything that survives. Some engines and other small parts might get damaged or broken off once the part actually impacts the surface. However, I did not try this with the elevations and distances you have outlined, so I will try again with some more extreme measures. With the control module attached, the part is counted as a probe or individual craft and can be switched to, tracked and even controlled to some degree. I'll build something with more stages and try again from medium and high altitude and something even from sub orbit to see if it makes a difference. Granted, even if I can prove this theory, the addition of radial chutes, control modules and perhaps even batteries is going to increase your ship's cost, not to mention it's mass. But if you can recover everything short of the fuel you have burnt up then maybe it's still a viable solution in the end.

I have something you can try and I proved it works on my own. Put a remote guidance system on top of the fuel tank for each stage you want to drop and later retrieve. This will allow you to activate the chutes whenever you want. It will also allow you to track the parts quite easily. Best of all, because of the guidance system the part does not get counted as debris and because of this will not suffer the physics dropoff. As long as it doesn't smash up when it reaches the surface you will be able to recover everything that is left. If you set the parachutes to open when you hit your decoupler, they will still open once they get to the appropriate elevation. Provided the game doesn't think it's looking at debris.

Wouldn't it be nice if they made some sort of mini Hitchhiker can that holds one kerbal, is the same diameter as the standard control module and defaults to empty so you could just slap one on under your control module for those "Rescue the kerbal from space" missions? Something just big enough to support a single kerbal.. I've had to do two of these missions so far and both times Jeb tries to come along in the vacant control module under the stayputnik. Some other things that I think might make the mission a little easier would be LIGHTS and RCS, I haven't unlocked either of those yet. First rescue went pretty slick, in the dark.. I managed to get within 12 meters of my target and switched to him to fly to and enter the control module, making sure to do an EVA report and a crew report. Minimal science there at this point but I'll take any scrap I can. The second mission I ended up chasing my target around Kerbin a few times until I was close enough and almost ALMOST ran out of power.. Has anybody else noticed the descriptions on some of these contracts seem to be a bit rambly and confusing? Maybe it's just me but some of the wording starts to get confusing and I find myself wondering "Who the heck is writing this?!"

A question that was posed to me by a friend was this, If you drop a stage with radial parachutes and later go and retrieve it, do you get money back for that part? It looks like that has been discussed a bit here and maybe you are getting your money back for the part? I do realize that due to distance and whatnot the part can drop off and just go away but my thought was what if you put a small guidance system on the part? So each time you drop a depleted stage it has it's own computer command module and is thus another craft or probe of the main craft, assuming that part survives it's descent, would you be able to recover it for it's full value less the spent fuel and anything that has broken? With the addition of a command module, the part shouldn't drop off as it is technically it's own vessel. Has anybody tested this yet?

I believe this is the correct assessment. I didn't realize until I created a new career mode file that the base (Starting) command module holds 10 monopropellant. I don't have the ability to use RCS jets on that file yet and kept noticing that I was being refunded for 10 monoprope that I hadn't used. So I am onboard that this is not a bug.