nhnifong

I've tested it. I'm certain it's purely visual. Slowed it down by 100 times an still observed a "shock" deceleration.

I'm going with a slightly cheaty approach for now. Yes, lots of struts help, but I also changed the semideployed-drag of the radial chute to about 45. (it was only 1) for comparison, the fully deployed drag is 500. This seems to have completely solved the problem for my current vessel and give a more realistic looking decent.

Ahh, welcome to the Volcano. Rent will be 10000 units of kethane per day, delivered by helicopter.

I'm having a really hard time landing my current creation because when the chutes open it explodes from the sudden force of deceleration. Are there some creative way of placing parachutes that can spread out the force of deceleration without using thrusters?

vote to move to off topic.

Oh I know that song NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaNaNaN NaN.....

Ahh, ok. The old battery problem again.

Ohh thanks for the suggestion Supernovy, I'll check that out. Honestly I'm not sure how the current version of "fine control" every got past the first in-game test.

I think a successful bomb actually needs a strong casing to contain the pressure until it builds to an optimal point before rupturing, therefore releasing the pressure during a shorter span of time, and producing a more destructive shock wave.

Everyone loves to cite the NERVA nuclear thermal rocket engine as the next step in high ISP propulsion. But the idea of a thermal rocket that heats up hydrogen propellant does not require any nuclear power. Why couldn't the propellant just be heated with microwaves powered by batteries. The battery power could be collected when it was available from solar panels. This form of thermal rocket, if it could achieve the same temperatures as a NERVA would be *slightly more efficient* if the solar panels and batteries were lighter than the nuclear fuel, and *would have a longer useful lifespan* than a NERVA that runs out of nuclear fuel before propellant. As far as I know, no such rocket has ever been put in orbit. Why? is there some fatal flaw, or just an aversion to risk?

Ise imgur or your photo will disappear. Welcome to the Internet.

Wow you like to build big ships.

I know this is not supposed to be compatible with 0.20.2 but I thought I'd submit a few bugs anyways. The timewarp triangles in the upper left corner are made invisible. The science lab and most of the other parts fall through the pad. going EVA causes a NaN blacked out navball and corrupts your save.

Great work Hooligan and BlazingAngel!

I've got a new strategy for mining on the ocean floor. Really long KAS cable dangling from an airship. Sure it's not a submarine, but it works! As long as the airship has at least one buoyancy tank, the probe can sink. As the prob gets close to the bottom, it fires a grappling hook and secures itself to the ocean floor. The ship above then switches to slightly positive buoyancy and pulls the cable tight, keeping the drill upright. Hooligan is there anything that can be done about the camera? There's not actually a kethane deposit here, I'm just testing it near KSC.

Well I have encountered some kind of bug. No amount of ballast tanks has any effect. I need at least one to make the craft sink, but I'm using the deployable balloons to actually move up and down in the water. Probably because I'm using version 0.20.2 but I'm very attached to my save

How did you figure out how many tanks you needed? Just double it till it works?

Ok I've mastered sinking but now I can't make anything that floats :/ What am I doing wrong?

Finally got around to installing it Hooligan Yes, you can mine kethane with it. Next step, a giant floating oil platform with a heli pad and a sinkable drilling rig connected with kethane! And tanker ships to transport the goods back to KSC to fuel the public's insatiable desire for the exploitation of Laythe!

After first switching my rover controls to IJKL so they don't interfere with attitude control, I just drive with my right hand on the IJKL , and my left hand on the WASD so I can quickly correct any problems when my rover pops into the air.

Given the density of kerbin, It may well be a hyper-dense superfluid of liquid actinide metals.

Since failure rate decreases with the number of launches (and hence re-designs) perhaps rockets should be compared by the rate that the failures exponentially decay.

On a side note, you may have more luck with a combined gravitational and magnetic assist, in which you opportunistically take advantage of the magnetic field lines of the sun to accelerate your craft with a superconducting electromagnet, while also getting a grav job, while thrusting with oberth effect, while surfing a CME with a sail

The speed of the sun relative to the barycenter of the solar system on a good day when the barycenter is not inside the sun is about 11 m/s Iv'e tried to calculate the amount of speed gain you can get from a solar surface flyby in the right direction with a 1 ton probe going at solar escape velocity and I only got an increase of about 100 m/s (0.014% of the probe's initial speed.) I'm probably wrong, can somebody verify?