Snark

They're all turned off by default. If you mount a propeller / heli blade statically (e.g. attach it to the body of the ship, rather than on a spinning propeller), then turning these on will allow it to function like a control surface, same as any of the ailerons / steerable fins / etc.

Really nice writeup! Moving to Spacecraft Exchange.

The blades work great for me... though I'm a little surprised that the rotors use as little electricity as they do. This little contraption (with counter-rotating blades) can cruise at ~34 m/s horizontally while climbing slightly, and still manage to get more juice from the solar panels than the motors are using-- that's as shown, even with the sun at a low angle so that my solar panels aren't optimally aimed at it. Really fun and fairly easy to fly. Just... would have expected it to be a bit thirstier for electricity, is all.

(Must resist, with every muscle in my body, the temptation to make the usual joke about "Oh, that's easy. You just go at night.") If you're just playing the stock game, then that sounds like a bug-- it shouldn't be offering contracts for things that don't have surfaces. I'd advise simply ignoring the contract and letting it expire on its own.

Hello, and welcome to the forums! Moving to Gameplay Questions. If I'm understanding correctly, your issue is that you're running out of fuel before you finish doing whatever-it-is that you're planning for your mission? If so, you've come to the right place for advice. Would help us give better advice, though, if we had a bit more info to go on: What is it that you're trying to accomplish with the mission? (i.e. where is it you want to go?) How far along do you get before you run out of fuel? Could you post a screenshot of your ship? Then we could point out specific ways to improve it. What does your ascent profile look like? For example, when you reach 300 m/s, how high up are you and about what angle from the vertical? (To post a screenshot here, just post it to imgur or some site like that, then copy the image URL and paste it here.)

Playing around with 1.7.3, and looking for interesting / original stuff to do with the parts. ("Use it as intended? Pffft, that's just what they'll be expecting us to do...") Gotta say that overall, I'm really happy with this patch-- lotta nice fixes, some very nice parts. Anyway, here I combined the small helicopter blades with little hinges to make cheap, super lightweight, half-assed airbrakes for a shoestring LKO rescue vehicle. 6 tons on the launchpad, can rescue a kerbal from LKO with nearly 1 km/s of dV to spare. Under 7K funds. Its terminal velocity when falling with the blades open is around ~65 m/s, so just a bit of retro-thrust from the Spark (mounted underneath, not visible here) makes it easy to land. (That's a Pug engine from MissingHistory powering the second stage, but I'm sure this would work just fine with a stock engine in its place, such as a Terrier or even just a Spark.) I really like the new grip pads, but I think they ought to be a lot lower on the tech tree. Rant in spoiler.

aaand the 1.7.3 version of Kopernicus is out already.

Moving to Add-on Discussions.

Moving to Add-on Discussions, hopefully a bit closer to the target audience.

Hello, and welcome to the forums! Moving this question about how to play the game to Gameplay Questions. The problem is that your HG-5 isn't strong enough to reach Kerbin, so you can't use it as a relay antenna for your lander. The HG-55 that you have on your spacecraft can talk directly to Kerbin from Duna, because at 15G, it's plenty powerful enough. But it's not a relay antenna, so it can be used only for controlling that spacecraft. You can't relay other craft's signals through it. Your HG-5 is a relay antenna... but unfortunately it only has 5M antenna power, which means it's strong enough to talk from a Duna-orbiting spacecraft to Duna surface, but it's not even close to being powerful enough to reach Kerbin. So you could use it for relaying signals from one near-Duna craft to another near-Duna craft, but you can't use it to relay signals all the way to Kerbin. If you wanted to have a relay from a short-range antenna on the surface of Duna all the way back to Kerbin, then you'd need a powerful relay antenna, e.g. the RA-15 would have worked fine.

Just to elaborate on what @Geonovast pointed out above: The overwhelming majority of mods work just fine after KSP updates; these days, it's fairly rare for a KSP update to break any given mods. (My own mods, for example, have generally worked just fine as-is for the last several KSP versions.) When SpaceDock says that a mod is for a particular version, that means "This mod works on this version of KSP". It means that the mod author has personally verified that that specific version of the mod happens to work on that specific version of KSP. That's all. It does not say anything about whether the mod works with other versions of KSP-- that's an unknown. For example, if a mod says "1.7.0" on it, then that doesn't necessarily mean that it doesn't work on 1.7.1. It just means that the author hasn't marked it as such. Which is pretty common, because mod authors have busy lives and often don't get around to updating compatibility information. Also, minor KSP version releases almost never break things these days, since those are minimal bugfix-type updates, usually. e.g. going from 1.7.0 to 1.7.1 is even less likely to break things than going from 1.6 to 1.7, for example.

Yes, but that's temporary. It just means that it hasn't been signed off yet for 1.7.2. compatibility. The Kopernicus author always gets a Kopernicus update out as soon as possible when KSP updates. That's not a thing. For Kopernicus specifically, it will always be that way, because for various good reasons the author has deliberately coded it to be locked to the current version of KSP. When KSP updates, Kopernicus requires a new release to work on the new KSP, by design. The author's made it pretty clear that that design decision won't be changing. For mods other than Kopernicus, they generally "just work" on new KSP versions; it's pretty rare for mods to break on KSP updates, these days. In your particular case, Kopernicus is the only thing that's holding you up. Just be patient, I'm sure there will be a 1.7.2-compatible version out soon. (And please don't go to the Kopernicus thread to ask for an ETA... the author gets enough of that kind of thing already. It'll be ready when it's ready, just be patient.)

Galileo's Planet Pack is excellent: has great artwork, interesting planet design (i.e. interesting gameplay challenges). And if you want variety/novelty, it completely replaces the stock solar system, so it's an all-new environment. New Horizons is another fun one. Adds a bunch of new planets with interesting gameplay challenges. Keeps all the stock planets, but completely rearranges the solar system (e.g. Kerbin is still the homeworld... but now it's a moon of a ringed gas giant). If you want something low-key, there's my own Snarkiverse, which doesn't add any new planets at all but rearranges the solar system for new and interesting gameplay challenges. There are plenty of other good ones out there; these are just ones that I've played and enjoyed myself (in addition to OPM, of course).

Moving to Suggestions.

Moving to Suggestions.

Moving to Gameplay Questions. It's only present when "Allow Full Rotation" is set to "disabled" on the rotational servo. Since it's enabled by default, that's why you're not seeing it.

This discussion appears to have pretty much run its course, so it's being locked.. For versions up to and including 0.13.3, these are publicly available for free. Later versions of KSP than that are not free and not legal to share, so there's no point in discussing it here. If anyone has reason to find the above statements to be inaccurate, please reach out to Squad or the moderator team. In the meantime, if you want to download one of the old 0.13.3-and-before versions, please see this post: Thank you for your understanding.

Moving to Add-on Discussion.

Moving to Add-on Discussions. My observation has been that practically everything is compatible with 1.7.2 (there haven't been a lot of mod-breaking changes in KSP in the last year). However, when I say "compatible", I mean "if you install it, it will, in fact, work"-- that doesn't necessarily mean that the author has updated the CKAN metadata yet, though, so if that's part of your requirement, not sure if that would be a dealbreaker for you. (It doesn't affect me personally, since I've never used CKAN and hand-install all the mods I use, for me "if it works, then it works" is the only relevant criterion.) One good place to look would be on SpaceDock. Not only is it a really popular place for modders to host their mods, but its set up so that every mod explicitly declares what KSP version it supports, so all you have to do is look for the "1.7.2" label, which tells you that "the author of this mod has explicitly stated that it works with 1.7.2.". As a side bonus, many (perhaps most) of SpaceDock-hosted mods are also on CKAN, if for no other reason than that SpaceDock has built-in CKAN support (it's just one little checkbox for a modder, when they post their mod). So I think SpaceDock might be a good place for you to look around. In my case? My own, of course Navball Docking Alignment Indicator (this has been on my "I refuse to play the game without it" list for quite a few years now) Scatterer, just 'coz it's gorgeous. Fantastic eye candy, and it's pretty stable. On the downside, it'll hammer your graphics card, so you have to have a pretty good one if you don't want your frame rate to drop. TAC Life Support, just 'coz I like life support as a gameplay mechanic, and this one's by JPLRepo whom I like a lot. (Life support isn't everyone's cup of tea, and also there are other good life support mods out there if that's what you're into.)

Moving to Kerbal Network, since this isn't about the game itself.

Moving to Challenges.

The problem is that to be in a closed orbit around Kerbin, you can't be going much over 3000 m/s at Pe-- otherwise, you're over escape velocity. If he's arriving at 4000+ m/s, that means he has to shed at least 1000 m/s on his first aerobraking pass, otherwise he'll just go flying past Kerbin and back out into solar orbit. And shedding 1000 m/s of speed from aerobraking requires diving fairly deep into the atmosphere; if you're over 50 km, it'll heat you up a lot but not slow you down by any appreciable amount. It doesn't work that way. If you only graze the atmosphere and your Pe is 68 km, it won't slow you down at all. You'd be lucky to lose 1 m/s of speed. You need to lose 1000+, and there's simply no way to do that without getting down into the "meat" of the atmosphere. The problem is that reentry gets hot at a much higher altitude than it gets draggy. One option would be to use rocket engines to slow the approach, of course, but that assumes having the dV to spare. One thing that matters a lot is your ship's ballistic coefficient. Without going into fancy details: ship design matters. In particular, is it big-and-draggy, or dense? If you've got a relatively lightweight vehicle that's got acres and acres of wing surface, it can do very well with reentry, because when you enter belly-first (i.e. holding all that wing surface perpendicular to the airflow), it generates a lot of drag relative to its mass, so it slows down rapidly and doesn't get fried. On the other hand, if you've got a heavy / dense vehicle with little wing surface, i.e. built like a javelin... then it's gonna have problems, because it's hard to generate enough drag to slow down. It'll punch through the atmosphere without losing much speed, and the only way to slow down enough would be to dive really deep, which then fries it. Moral of the story: A ship that is lighter weight, and has more wing surface, will do better at spaceplane-style reentry than one that's heavier / denser / less wing area. @Reinhart Mk.1, could you post a picture of your ship? Might help in diagnosing the problem. Maybe you just need more wing. Not even vaguely. 60 km is plenty hot enough to fry you if you're going fast enough, but it'll never slow you down to any appreciable degree in just one pass. If he's coming in at 4000+ m/s, that means he has to bleed off like 1000 m/s of speed on his first pass, which is also when he's going the fastest (and therefore hottest). Surviving that first pass is the key. If he has a ship that can aerobrake 1000+ m/s in one pass and survive, then he's good to go. If he doesn't, then it's hopeless. If he does survive that first pass... there's no need to "slowly bleed off" on multiple passes, because he'll only need one more pass at most. If he could bleed off 1000+ m/s on the first pass, then he'll be able to do that even more easily on the second pass when he's slower, and that puts him down to suborbital speeds. Definitely agree with this. There's no point in landing with any fuel. Burning the fuel slows you down (thus making your reentry easier), and also makes your craft lighter (and therefore slows down faster from drag), which also makes reentry easier. ^ This. Honestly, all that matters is that you have your wings facing perpendicularly to the airstream. If you simply point your nose and hold it there, then that gives you exactly what you need, without requiring any servos at all. You just need to design your craft's balance so that it can hold an attitude like that, or close to it. You're right for some cases, but (I believe) wrong in the current instance. It depends on situation. In particular, there's a world of difference between starting out already in orbit, versus approaching on an interplanetary / escape / hyperbolic trajectory. Let's take the easy case first. Let's say you're already in an orbit around Kerbin, with your Ap waaaay out near the edge of Kerbin's SOI, and Pe is brushing atmosphere. This means your speed will be slightly over 3000 m/s at Pe. Well, in that case, you're already in a closed orbit, which means you have the luxury of doing as many aerobraking passes as you need. If you want, you could set your Pe to something really high, e.g. even over 60 km. Each pass, you'll slow down only a teeny tiny bit, whereas you'll heat up a lot. But the heat-up-a-lot doesn't matter, since it's not heating you enough to actually explode, and you can cool off again as soon as you leave atmosphere. In this way, it will take many many passes to bring your Ap down and shed speed, but hey, why not? You've got all the time in the world. However... if the approaching ship is on a hyperbolic trajectory-- i.e. it's going way higher than Kerbin's escape velocity-- then the situation is completely different. Because then, you have to shed a whole lot of velocity on the very first pass, so "just barely graze atmosphere" simply won't work. You have to plow deep into the atmosphere to knock off tons of speed in a single pass. The dip-a-toe-in-the-water strategy simply won't work. So this is true only if you're already in orbit and have the luxury of making many little passes. Otherwise, the exact opposite strategy (plow right in, to a deep level of the atmosphere) is often better. Depends on circumstances (i.e. trajectory) and ship design.

Never anything anywhere near that long, and probably never will. This is mainly because I've got an indelible mental roleplay model that I've had ever since I first got KSP, which I am unable to shake: I put myself in the kerbals' place, to the point that their calendar is my calendar. Their calendar is "real" to me while I'm playing and I get impatient. I don't mean "impatient" in the sense of "oh noes, I have to wait half an hour while I timewarp"-- that wouldn't be any biggie, I'd just grab a cup of tea and wait a bit. I mean "impatient" in the sense that it really bothers me a lot that the kerbals have to wait for years and years. (Not sure why that bugs me so much-- might be a natural consequence of my experiences growing up. I was a kid when they launched Voyager, and was all "...what do you mean, I gotta wait until I'm a grown-up until we get to see Neptune?!") So I'm essentially completely unwilling to subject my kerbals to long wait times like that. Even for uncrewed missions, I don't want the poor kerbals back home to have to sit around waiting for many many years to get the data from the mission. So every time I start a new KSP career and am setting up the "goal" for that career (i.e. what does "done" look like, what is the story arc going to be), it's always the case for me that "...and get it done in a reasonably short amount of calendar time." My KSP careers rarely reach the ten-year mark before I reach the "victory condition" for that career, whatever it may be. So, if I ever had a craft that was going to Jool, say, and it had a trajectory such that it was going to take 72 years to get there... then to me, that's a failed craft that's considered lost. I'd just go into the tracking station, mark it as debris, and go launch another ship on a faster trajectory. And if I'm playing with some mod that greatly expands the size of the solar system, such as OPM, then when I go out to the outer fringes, I do not follow Hohmann transfers (because those would take decades)-- I always pack however much extra dV I need to keep the trip down to a "reasonable" length (e.g. under five years, preferably only a year or two each way if possible without going totally nuts).

Moving to Add-on Discussions.