TheXRuler

This sounds like a lot of fun I'm in if it's not to late to join...

Interstellar is a really good idea. Most of it (except for antimatter and FTL-Drives) aren't even that far away, many are just in very early stages of development. Either that or development was stopped due to cost to efficieny factor. Things like fusion aren't that far off, and things like microwave beamed power are possible, but since we don't have fusion we don't have enough energy to make it useful etc. I really like the mod because it doesen't feel OP since it is a helluva lot of work to set up say a reliable beamed power network. Also, I can strongly reccomend the [thread=79588]MKS/OKS[/thread] by Roverdude (also check out his other mods, they're awesome), especially combined with kethane or karbonite they add a whole new level of complexity to the game. My self set goal is to havea fully self sufficient spaceprogram with in situ refuelling and mining operations, self-sustaining life support systems for all stations and bases, bases and orbital stations around every body, a fleet of FTL-capable shuttles and rescue ships and a gigantic self-sustaining FTL-Cruiser with landers, skycranes and rescue ships for all bodies in the kerbin system. Also concerning your RAM problems I can strongly reccomend [thread=59005]Active Texture Managment[/thread]. That enabled me to more than double the amount of mods I can use, and my install was already heavily modded. I am currently using MKS/OKS, KW-Rocketry, KSP-Interstellar, Freight Transport Technologies and B9-Aerospace, all of which are rather part heavy. Plus a ****load of plugins and I still have space to go

Assuming your computer can handle it you could do a maximum realism install using things like [thread=52882]more realistic ISP[/thread], [thread=70008]more realistic jet engines[/thread], [thread=55145]a real scale solar system[/thread], [thread=61632]a more realistic career mode[/thread], [thread=54954]Deadly Reentry[/thread], [thread=83305]Remote Tech[/thread], [thread=86677]Stage Recovery[/thread], [thread=20451]Ferram Aerospace Research[/thread] or TAC-Life Support to name just a few. Especially using RSS I have often read that it is a really different experience.

30000 m/s might be just a tad optimistic, although I do really like the idea of smashing a thousand part vessel into mohos surface at 30km/s definetly the most kerbal way to get there ^^ If you really want to try this you could build legs out of cubic octagonal struts, since they are ridiculously tough and also very flexible when used in large amounts. However hitting the ground at very high velocities can result in quite other problems, as Randazzo has already said if you are going fast enough you will be about to crash in one physics frame, in the next you will be below the planets surface causing you to explode, though you might just be able to counteract this with a VERY large vessel. Scott Manley had to deal with a similar problem in his video .I must admit this is all just random theorizing, I have very little experience with lithobraking, mostly it was accidental.

Does it really? I did not know that ^^ haven't been using MKS/OKS for long though. Does this count for any part or just the KAS attachable parts?

ARM missions can be hard... As Randazzo says, the best way is get your relative velocity at closest approach to a minimum. Eg you could get a kerbin escape, then adjust your solar orbit to intersect the asteroids orbit before it enters Kerbins SOI. This should significantly reduce the dV costs, as only a small velocity change is required to alter the ateroids course when you are further away from Kerbin. If however the asteroid is inside kerbins SOI your best option might be to launch to an orbit wich is going the same way as the ateroid will when it passes Kerbin, taking account of the inclination, as launching to an inclined orbit is cheaper than making an inclination change burn while in LKO. Once in LKO you could raise your ap and then try getting a close approach to the asteroid as far from Kerbin as possible.

Mhhh, thats a really interesting idea. I have never tried anything like that, however Scott Manley did something similar in his . Just skip to 8:30, thought that might give you an idea how well it works to connect ships via winches. I would say it works in principal, however I assume it lacks the precision necessarry for interplanetary transfers.

I agree, it is basically unfeasible to "drag" ships around. There is a very high probability of spontaneous disassembly and also, as pincushionman has said, whenever you timewarp the ships inside the bay will drift through the cargo bays because the game puts all vessels on rails (this makes it possible for the game to speed up time by 100000x but also means that there will be no physics any vessel at that time. Also, not only will your ships drift apart, but because physics is reactivated when you go off-rails parts that are clipping inside each other will violently push against each other, tear apart and crash into other parts resulting in sudden splodification. I'm afraid KAS Struts will not work, as they can only be attached to the same ship. The only KAS part I know of that can be used to connect seperate ships is the pipe (or rather two connected pipe end points). However I have on multiple occasions had pipe connections produce spontaneous dissasembly or phantom forces that will tear literally anything apart (I had docked a 300t Spaceplane to a 600t Station and it ripped it to shreds) so I try to keep refueling time to a minimum as I always feel that pipe connections are pretty much kraken bait. As far as I know the only thing that really impacts FPS is the amount of parts loaded in the physics engine. Ie 40 700part vessels in kerbin orbit will increase your loading time since they will massively increase the size of your persistent.sfs, they will however not impact your FPS. If you now load one of these 700 part vessels into the physics engine it will tank your FPS (unless your have an absolute monster of a rig). Keeping part count to a minimum is I think most important, and I have made it something of a permanent challenge to myself to only ever use the absolute minimum number of parts on any vessel which is to remain in orbit. I see you are already using quite a few mods so I might not be showing you anything new but you migh want to check out [thread=59005]Active Texture Management[/thread] it might not help very much with FPS but it will massively reduce the RAM usage, meaning you can use more mods alltogether.

Ok great, I will get going straight away then. I'm afraid the Freight Transport Technologies nuclear engine has an ISP of 900. However, as is stated in the op it uses Liquid Hydrogen as fuel. I was wondering if I could not simply provide enough documentation to prove that I did not put any of the Liquid Hydrogen/Karborundum tanks or the Liquid Hydrogen Fueled Nuclear Engines on any of my craft.

I can strongly reccomend getting KJR for two reasons. It strengthens ALL connections between all parts and it slowly turns up physics when loading a vessel or coming off rails. About the kraken, this can be a problem (although only for very few people) but if you do have difficulties you simply delete the KJR folder and everything is back to normal. I musw admit I started using KJR with some trepidation (I even made a backup of my save file) as I had heard similar reports but I started really getting used to it. Then I had trouble because I was building a really huge 700 ton space station and after docking the last part KJR did no longer want to deal with my crap so it started wobbling the station apart. All I did was remove the KJR folder and everything was back to normal.

If you wish to get the maximum amount of science you will always have to retrieve the experiment or store the data in a command capsule and safely return that. Not that you can only have ONE experiment of each type in a command capsule, no matter the size. If you wish to store more than one set of data (eg. two goo reports in one capsule) your only choice is to use the Mobile Processing Lab. This reduction in science points is a way to nerf unmanned one way missions, as launching a probe to land on the mun is cheaper than launching something that can land and return. However I find that with the biomes added to every body in stock KSP now, it is quite possible to get enough science to escape the Kerbin's sphere of influence solely by transmitting.

Could be either jool or one of the other bodies, ksp can be a bit weird concerning distant objects. You might want to check [thread=98943]this mod[/thread] out.

I'd really like to help you, but some more information would really help, especially mods and which ones you are using. Using B9-Aerospace or FAR/NEAR makes a huuuuge difference.

Yay, this sounds like a lot of fun, will definetly be entering a station here. Does it have to be completely newly designed? I currently am working on a rather massive project and have more or less just started. For the purpose of this challenge I would start a new sandbox save, documenting the launch, rendevousz and docking of all the seperate modules. Also, would it be possible to semi-assemble sth in say LKO, then send it somewhere else and fully assemble the segments? It's to be assembled mainly by spaceplane with just the 3.75m parts needing a rocket. Edit: Also, in which category would you put Umbra Space Industries's [thread=91706]Freight Transport Technologies[/thread].

I'm sorry, I must admit I completely misunderstood you. If you are refueling in the parking orbit then of course the highest possible is the best. My explanation was assuming that the mission was to be done with a minimal amount of funds.

This is true, those are some quite good observations however there are some problems with your explanation. When you burn while deeper in the gravity whell you will be faster, this means your ship (and also your fuel) has more energy (the kinetic energy from your orbital velocity is what makes this difference). Now when you burn the fuel you will get more energy from burning the fuel, due to the fuel containing more energy. This is the oberth effect. The thing is while you need less dV to change your orbit from a high circular orbit, it takes more fuel to get this amount of dVthan when you are lower down and going faster. Gravity losses are what you get when you are fighting gravity, eg. at the beginning of every rocket launch you are using your engines to counteract gravity's pull on your ship. Say the gravitational acceleration is 9.81 m/s² (g on earth) then you are loosing 9.81 m/s² of the dV you are producing. This is why it is, to a certain point, better to go sideways while launching since your lateral velocity will counteract gravity without the aforementioned gravity losses, also the thrust applied in lateral direction is free of gravity losses and adds only to your orbital velocity. This is of course disregarding drag losses. Thirdly, the most efficient way to go to mun would be a launch with a gravity turn, then, insted of circularizing you would do your munar injection burn. Get a really low periapsis and do a nice, safe, and efficient grazing trajectory. Shortly before you reach periapsis you start a retrograde burn and maintain a grazing trajectory while slowing down. By doing this you maintain a high lateral velocity for the longest possible time, again reducing gravity losses to an absolute minimum.

I saw this and thought I'd draw up something quickly. I used this to build my station, and it's also the only way I have managed to get a 2.5m docking hub. If you launch this thing atop a rocket with the decoupler and dock it with the central docking port you can dock your recon craft where the dark blue triangles are you can use them as drive engines. Stronger engines increase wobble, also they have lower ISP which means you need more fuel for the same dV. Of course using this design would require quite a lot of rendevouz and docking, which can be quite hard. But then again it is almost essential for interplanetary missions and station building, so getting some practice is always good.

Oh my God, Ghetto Spikes, you made my day sir Also, this craft is awesome, definetly one of the best I have seen in my time here. Is there any chance you will put up a download link for this amazing piece of work?

ok great thanks, I'll come back on this offer if and when th OP really does leave the company

I assume this is the right place to ask this question? I checked the FAQ and the first few pages of the "Kerbal Network" board to no avail so far. My question is, would it be not only possible, but feasible and permitted to change ownership of a Thread? I ask this because I just joined a company with a rather massive thread, containing all kinds of goodness, development notes for certain craft, especially joint projects, the entire companies craft repository, and so on and so forth. The person maintaining the OP is planning on leaving the company, at least thats what they posted, and I was thinking it would be a shame to let all that go to waste. Especially since the amount of views and replies add a lot to a companies prestige.

you might be able to, if you find the sort by mass module in the VAB code, you should in theory be able to change the default setting, however I do not know if that would work, and even if it's possible it might break the code, or cause any number of random bugs.

mhhh, as far as I know it's not possible to dock docking ports on when they are both on the same ship, might be wrong though. In case you encounter the bug, let me know via pm, I have had this quite a few times and could explain how to edit stuff to make it work again.

That would be from the [thread=81543]NavHud[/thread]

I thought my version of the F-22 might be worth some rep, took me only about two day to make but I think it's my best aircraft so far. Befor you get your hopes up, this is not a spaceplane, mainly because I wanted it to be as close to reality as possible (spaceplane would mean more engines). The only mods this uses are B9 Aerospace (Many Parts) , bac9's B9 Procedural Wings (3 Parts) , BahamutoD's Mk II Lightning Cockpit (1 Part) and Ferram Aerospace Research. If you're into aircraft, and you're not a stock hardliner you should get these anyways It was built to not only look similar to the real F-22, but also to have similarily incerdible maneuverability. As such it is capable of pulling up to ~9g in a low altitude subsonic turn, without breaking apart. In the low supersonic region it can still do up to 6 or 7g, depending on how thick the atmosphere is. This version lifts of and lands best at about 120 m/s. Best Maneuverability is achieved just below mach 1. I find this to be the most fun and easiest to fly aircraft I have built so far, also the best looking, but please let me know what you think. Download the craft here

WOW, this is perfect, beautiful cockpit, really nice IVA. Also, I was working on a F-22 replica aircraft, and I just couldn't get the cockpit right. This part has solved my problems. Thanks a ton man