Heimdall5008

That moment when... ... your Duna lander runs out of fuel during descent and you notice that you obviously had no symmetry activated as you build that fuel line to the small fuel tanks with the landing gear attached... ... you make a perfect intercept with Moho (Pe only 18 km or so), plan your retrograde burn and than notice that you have an insanely orbital velocity of 9 km/s and even if you had engough dV your burn would only be completed at about 5 minutes AFTER leaving Mohos SOI. At least I had about 15 seconds to do the science in low orbit... ... you return from Duna after a near perfect mission (this time with a working fuel line) your CM glides down on its parachute, only kilometres from the KSC, with a nice velocity of 3 m/s, hits the ground and explodes. (WHY??!!!) ... you land after a successful parachute test contract, just want to hit "Recover", and your craft is hit (and destroyed) by the discarded booster stage... ... you discover that MechJeb has been drinking lately. I used the ascend guidiance (I had no nerve after the first 5 modules of my space station) and then MJ sets up a 23.000 m/s circulazation burn in anti-normal direction. WTF? ... you mange to land a plane at the inland KSC (after n-th tries), you will extend the ladder and everything explodes... ... you think it is a smart idea to send an atmospheric analysis from your probe on descend to Eve (so that you can do the analysis again in low atmo) and then discover that this needs an insanley amout of 4000 electric charge (with only 200 availible on the craft and 3 Ox-STATs)...

While working in the Tracking Station to find his lost brother Jeb (forgot his antenna on Dres...) Bob deiscovered a C class asteroid on course to Kerbin. It would reach it's periapsis at about 8.000 km in about 18 days. That sounds really good, but the incilination of about 97° sounds really bad. But we cannot wait for Jeb to have all the fun, so Bob ordered to launch the asteroid redirection probe that was prepared for the last asteroid but never launched because the launch window had to be used for a Jeb rescue mission... The probe (including a transfer stage) has a mass of about 80 tons and about 11.000 m/s dV (without an asteroid attached ). It was launch from the main stage of two KR-2L and one KS-25x4 engines together with two SRBs. The transfer/circulazation stage consists of an Poodle engine. (Main stage on ascend with the rising Mun in the background.) After a short correction burn at the ascending node the KSC could set up a near perfect intercept (4.6 km after injection burn ). After the breaking manouver at the closest approach some careful RSC thrusts put probe on an intercept with RGK-663. The AGU was armed and the lights switched on to look for a nice place to attach. (Seconds away from "docking") Now docked with RGK-663 I was calculated that the asteroid has a mass of about 117 tons. That's much. Now the 4 NERVAs only had about 2000 m/s left. But no time to discuss, the KSC had to start the retrograde burn till the asteroid was still near engough to the perisapsis. Combined with a major inclanation change the probe was able put the asteroid in a almost circular orbit on the Mun plane with perisabsis of about 7000 km and apoapsis of about 8000 km. In the same time Bob was not idle. He single-handedly designed a manned ship for a sample return from the now captured asteroid. Okay, basicly he took a standard Mun/Minimus lander, stripped the landing gear and attached a Klaw . After a short flight he arrived at the asteroid and attached his ship at the other side of the probe. As the asteroid was in the core shadow of Kerbin he had to be careful as he forgot to remount the landing lights at the top of his ship. Just after he finished his docking manouver he could look at an beautiful sun rise over Kerbin: (Sun rise over Kerbin with the Mun in the background and RGK-663 "Bob" with the redirect probe and the sample return craft attached) After this spectacular scene Bob started with his EVA to claim the asteroid for Kerbalkind and take some surface samples. Modest as he is, he named RGK-663 "Bob". After this he plotted this course back to Kerbin and dreamed of the many valuable elements he will find in the surface samples and how he will steal Jeb the show, at least this time...

One time I accidently decoupled my fully throttled up main engine through wrong staging sequence (I actually wanted to decouple an empty tank). According to MJ I had about 11000 m/s dV left, after seperating of the manned stage it should be a few thousand more. I reverted the flight, but I think this one would have gone pretty far

I wanted to go to Eve, land there a probe and than on to Gilly and land with the manned lander. So my transfer window (according to a table here in the forum) came up and I tried to get an intercept. It was impossible, the transfer window is about have an orbit away... (so much for tables, do the math yourself...) So what to do. I tried for other intercepts and found that Dres is just in the right possition. So I landed my Eve vessel and redesigned it a bit (removed the probe and the atmospheric science to get some additional dV) and started again. I plotted my course and got within 40.000 km for about 1500 m/s dV. After reaching the descending node I burned an additional 900 m/s to synchronize the planes. After some month I set up a correction burn of about 200 m/s to get an intercept with Dres. In the perapsis I perfomed the insertion burn for another 1900 m/s. Slowly I became a bit worried about my remaining dV. I think Jeb wants to go back home sometime... I orbit I discovered my first design fault. During the emergency refit form the Eve mission I obviously had also deleted my antenna. So only one crew report this time. After a perfect landing on the day side Jeb did all the science and collected the reports to the reentry capsule as the rest of the module with the science equipment would be dropped. So Jeb was ready to move on. He had about 4500 m/s left to get to Dres orbit and back to Kerbin. As I can aerobrake this should suffice. Back in orbit I calculated that the next transfer window will be in about one year. so I hope Jeb has some good reading to do, as he has no contact with the KSC...

I can think of three features for satellites: 1. Communication: You have to establish a communications network before you can send any data without line of sight (at least from other bodies than Kerbin) or if your distance is to high (relais stations). 2. Mapping: biome maps, height maps, maybe ressource maps (if they incorporate extrakerbin ressources) with satellites should be in the vanilla game 3. Navigation: You could install GPS networks on the different bodies and then get an autopilot for precision landing or at least a navball target or something like this. Maybe also autopilot and/or course plotting for rovers (get navpoints to navigate around obstacles if you have mapped the planet or so).

Today I finished all science readings on Kerbin. I still had 4 left (naturally in 4 different biomes) so I had to make 4 trips to get thema all. The first three were no problem and for two of them I used my first aerodynamical stable plane. For the last one I had to use the landing assist from MJ because I really suck at landing at precise locations... After this I had the great idea to make a plane with airdrop capability for Kerbals and a rover (airborne style...). Unfortunatly I had not heard of the bug with decoupling several commandable subunits at the same time. Therefore I effectively screwed uo my save game. So while the effects were spectulary I could not make any nice pics instead I spend the rest of the time to repair my save game with notepad++. But at least it works again...

I measured 0 °C on the drak side (night side) of the Mun today. As stated before the temperaure does not really make sense. I think there is a thread here in the forum that shows, that the temperature on a special heigth over Kerbin is hotter the the sun.

I know it's a bit off topic, but as you already mentioned the relativistic baseball... Relativistic baseball on XKCD

Yes, your right. I tested it and the complete island with the airfield counts as water.

The last days I encountered a little situation some times. While building a rocket I had to change constantly between different categories but the parts that I wanted to use where always on the second page. So had each time to move the mouse from the very top to the very bottom to change the page and back up again to the parts. My suggestion is to either add a second page change button at the top of the part list or to move the current buttom from the bottom to the top. I think this would be much more ergonomically.

Thanks, seems logical. Also now tested it without battery and solar panels. Mechjeb adds 5 electric charge, after the circulazation burn I had 6,3 charge left. Just engough to fire up SAS and burn the remaining 20 m/s retrograde before I dropped under the 5 charge from Mechjeb.

No, I did not know that they were massless, I thought only parts with drag 0 are not counted. My bad. Can I find somewhere a list which parts are considered massless or to get the real weight of the craft? But 0,94 t is still good I think /EDIT: Thank you for the tips. I incorporated them and know have the following craft: MonoOrbiter.craft 880 kg complete (added the 11 parts myself this time ), 685 kg massless, with the option to reduce it to 865 kg. The bottom tank is only filled to 40% and I still have 20 m/s left in orbit:

Also not really a planet, but I would like to have some (or at least one) comets with own (very small) gravity and so on.

Okay, my first challenge. After trying to optimize the fuel engines even more (and spectaculary failing) I changed my strategy and build a craft with the shiny new monopropellant engines. The craft basiclly consists of 3 FL-R10 mono tanks, 1 tiny TR-2V stack seperator, 2 O-10 engines and an OKTO2 core. The top most tank (second stage) is only filled to 90%. To be able to operate the probe indefinatly in orbit I but a battery and 2 solar panels on it, but I can make orbit without them. According to MJ the craft has 765 kg. Add each 5 kg for battery and solar panels and I come to 780 kg. The craft has dV of 3711 m/s (atmo) / 4892 m/s (vac) with a max TWR of 5.20 (first stage) / 15.91 (second stage). With the help of Mechjeb I can put the probe in a stable 71 km orbit and have still 200 m/s left for deorbit (or some useful payload like a 2HOT ). If someone can show me a site that accepts craft files I will upload it. At the moment I have not found a site that accepts this format. /EDIT: Okay, tested a bit further. My craft "Mono Orbiter" still works with only 85% monopropellant in the top tank. That are 20 kg down again. So new stats are 760 kg / 745 kg with 50 m/s left in 71 km orbit.

Yeah, some of the testing contracts are way more efficient than a complete Kerin science mission. Yesterday a had a contract that gave 260 science for a test "landed at Kerbin". I almost overtook my science carrer (startet in 23.5) with the new carrer and have there only visited the Mun. But yesterday I completed the tech tree in the old save. As for my theory for the administrative facility: I think maybe the stats of our Kerbonauts will get some meaning. Maybe you can train your Kerbonauts there special skills (depending on their stats), like "auto burn a preset node". AFAIK give meaning to the stats and give the Kerbonauts some skills a also on the improvment list.

Yes, I noticed this double binome readings. But because of this reason, coast binomes strech a bit in the water, I think it is not possible to get the water binome somewhere on land.

On the decend on Duna my lander became somehow unstable, always steered to one side and I had no idea why. As my engine run out of fuel I noticed why: Only one of my three external tanks (transfer and landing stage) was connected via fuel line to the ascend stage and engine. Obviously I had used no symmetry when I placed the fuel line. So now I had two full fuel tanks but no chance to get the fuel to my engine... Other mission: I but the Remote Control Unit on the wrong side of the decoupler... Multimission fail: I launched the hub for my space station. Only with the next module I discovered that I had placed all the senior docking ports with the wrong side out... So I had to use a tug with a claw to deorbit this one and start a new one.

In the badlands on Kerbin. It seems impossible to land there

While waiting for a transfer window to Eve I used the time to lift a xenon storage module to my space station (not really sure why, maybe because I can ). Then Camwise Kerman tested my first completly new designed Mun/Minimus lander together with a new lifter optimized for the mass of the lander. Without science equipment the cost was only 57.000 which I think is pretty good. Suprisingly everything worked out fine in the first try. Camwise got my lander plus transfer stage into a nice circular orbit (apoapsis and periapsis had about 300m difference , normally I get a difference of about 3-5 km without correction burns). The second stage burned out seconds before lifting the periapsis out of the atmosphere, therefore no debris. Then Camwise burn in the decending node to change my inclination and made my TMI. At Minimus he made an orbit insertion and changed to a polar orbit (I had to get that gravity scan of the poles...). With the last drops of fuel of the transfer stage he lowered the periapsis inside a mountain and got rid of my transfer stage. Than Camwise made two beautiful landings in different bionomes and made his experiments. After that he got back to Kerbin and splashed down not that far from the KSC. After this he completed the stunt again, this time only with the Mun and only one landing (I think the fuel might have been engough for a second landing, but Camwise didn't want to strand on the Mun like his colleague Tom during my first visit on the Mun). He made it back to Kerbin and landed. Then I hit the Recovery button and the game freezes. Okay, no problem, load the quicksave. Naturally as everything went so fine I had used it last after my TMI to Minimus 12 days ago... *grrgh* *Edit checklist: Use quicksave more often!* /EDIT: So, optimized the ship a bit further, now it is only 46.000 kerbuck including some thermometers and 2 mystery goos (graviton scans and seismic scan naturally not included, they are 12000 per part...)

I think a big problem for longterm Mars colonies will be the thin atmosphere. So much smaller asteroids than on earth are a deadly danger for every base, because they won't burn up on atmosphere entry. Therefore I think some small colonies not that far apart (rover distance) would be the best solution for the beginning. The bases are close engough to support each other, to work together, but you still have local redundancy.

The force is defined by Newtons law as: F = m*a In this case a is the gravitational acceleration, noted as g. F=m*g For middle europe g is normally g = 9.81 m/s². The energy is given as the potential energy as E_pot = m*g*h, where h is the height above the ground (a.k.a. the local minimum of the potential energy).

http://xkcd.com/1244/ Yes, really. I read this comic, wondered what KSP was, looked it up in wiki and got interessted.

And with this replies were back with the photon drive

Yes, you can. The right directory is under ..\Steam\SteamApps\common\Kerbal Space Program\GameData

Thanks for the great guide! But I think I've found some errors in the latest version. Would be great if you could fix them or otherwise explain me, how to meassure them - Gilly has no atmosphere and therefore no oppurtunity for barometric pressure or sensor array when landed. - As far as I know it is not possible to use seismic scan or sensor array when splashed down. On Kerbion you can only get the binome Water when you are splashed down, so it seems to me that these scans are not possible for Kerbin. - The binomes of Minimus in low space are not marked alternating black and white (difficult to read).