Spheniscine

I have lots of stupid names based on manglings/puns on real life space missions; the Fastok, the Apallo, the Munacod

When you accidentally search KSP-specific queries on Wikipedia, or accidentally search general-purpose queries on the KSP wiki. (bonus if they are about real-life astronomy)

Nope. There is no line indicating which profession a kerbal is. Currently it is determined solely by the hash function.

It does work. For some reason though the impact spot X doesn't show up sometimes. If you turn on "body-fixed" mode, you'd be able to see your flight path relative to the surface and eventual impact spot.

The wiki gave asteroid masses as e1.5x, where x ≈ 1 for A, x ≈ 2 for B, etc. Assuming a variation of ±.5 for x, this gives A: 2.1 ~ 9.5 tons B: 9.5 ~ 42.5 tons C: 42.5 ~ 190.6 tons D: 190.6 ~ 854 tons E: 854 ~ 3,828 tons

e1.5x, where x ≈ 1 for A, x ≈ 2 for B, etc.

If you're willing to use mods, USI Exploration Pack has a special "Pack Rat" rover that is attachable to a delivery cage that you can land on. It is a little wide though.

I'm getting a bit of déjà-vu here... does the current version use lateral distance or straight-line distance? I really preferred lateral distance for precise landings.

If all you need to do is to capture it into Kerbin orbit, you can try redirecting it into an aerobraking trajectory. I'm not exactly sure how much ∆v you'd need to stabilize the orbit though; I think ~200 m/s or so; maybe more if you need to redirect it a lot to get the right trajectory. Really though, class Es can easily go over 2000 tons, so you'd have a hard time moving it anywhere else, short of using a mod like Asteroid Recycling Technologies to mine/hollow it, or being extremely good/lucky with gravity assists etc.

I've used them for contracts to put satellites in low solar orbit ; the combination of high ∆v requirement and extremely efficient solar panels make ion engines an obvious choice. Other than that though, I'm always paranoid of having to do maneuvers during eclipses, and you need 12 RTGs to constantly power an ion engine, which is too heavy to be practical. I suppose batteries would work, but I don't know how many I'd need.

- I land aircraft with parachutes rather than landing gear. I also abuse the jet engines' high thrust to launch small aircraft vertically. - I also strand kerbals for missions - though I don't use a life support mod. Sorry, but the contractor didn't pay for the return trip...

v0.2 is out; made the large command pod and lander can just *slightly* cheaper as per flashcactus' request.

If I recall correctly, multiply masses by k2 , and multiply rotation periods by √k , where k is the scale factor.

... when you hear "nuke" and think "terrifyingly efficient rocket engine", not "terrifyingly destructive weapon".

I abuse quicksave and quickload. I use HyperEdit in a "serious" save, in order to place "marker" objects in particular orbits, so that I have something to adjust my inclination against.

Make sure you have the latest version of both Trajectories and FAR. There was a bug in some of the earlier 0.90 versions of FAR that prevented Trajectories from doing the appropriate calculations.

I like to stick something under my rovers to lower their center-of-mass. Of course it'd also help if it isn't just dead-weight, so I usually use one of two things: a small RCS tank (with thrusters at the sides of the rover) or a small reaction wheel. The former works best on low-gravity worlds; assign a key to thrust downward, and use it to provide "artifical gravity" and more traction when accelerating, braking, turning, cresting, or when you just need more stability. Both can be used to flip rovers back up if they flip over; the reaction wheel works better in high-gravity worlds.

Well, here is a summary of the process I was talking about; I've used it for inclined solar contract satellites, so it should work for Moho/Dres/Eeloo too: 1. Find your launch window using Alexmoon's planner (for aforementioned satellites I create a new "planet" with the orbital elements from the persistence file, and adjust "mean anomaly" to get a satisfactory balance between time and dV expense) 2. Enter the departure and arrival dates into "Compute Departure Burn" from KSPTOT. Reason I use Alexmoon's planner first is that I find its porkchop graphing much more convenient than KSPTOT's. 3. Take a note of the "Hyperbolic Departure Orbit from Kerbin", specifically, inclination, right ascension of AN (LAN), and argument of periapsis. 4. Use Hyperedit to move a "marker" satellite into that particular inclination and LAN. Also give it slight eccentricity so that the periapsis can mark the departure point. Hyperedit is technically cheating, but really the only way I know of to easily "visualize" those numbers in-game, and gives you something to target and make adjustments against. I just treat the marker as not "real" and just a hacky way of defining your own orbital waypoint. 5. Launch the vessel into inclination, using the marker as a guide. I've gotten good enough at it to usually come within 1 degree of the target orbit, which doesn't take too much dV to adjust.

Maybe just make the barometer work when landed on "airless" worlds, with appropriate flavor text...

Mercury's surface atmosphere is about 10-19 of standard atmospheric pressure - negligible for KSP purposes... (even the Moon has an atmosphere of ~10-14 atm)

Launching into the right inclination for an interplanetary transfer is difficult with the tools the game gives you, as your inclination when you escape Kerbin's SOI is not equal to your inclination within Kerbin's SOI... it all depends on in which direction and how quickly you're escaping. You also need to make sure your ascending and descending nodes are at the right place. I do have a particular process for this, but it's kinda complicated involving the use of two external programs and certain mods...

I hear you need to mount it on a pylon to prevent that from happening... not sure, never used KAS

Another possible solution: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/56137-Probe-Science-config-files I've not tested it with 0.90 though, so no guarantees that it'll work. edit: Hmm looking at Kerbalmaps, Gilly has a weird case where the highest point (6401m) is higher than the "in space near" border (6000m). I wonder if that might have contributed to the bug.

There is actually something that I want to bring up about the whole "keep orbit for 30/90/whatever days" thing. There are two problems with it: 1. Early levels of Mission Control are limited by the number of contracts they could have, and 2. Some contracted satellite orbits aren't actually stable due to intersection with moon orbits. I had a contracted polar satellite that got very close to Mun's orbit eject out of Kerbin's SOI when I wasn't looking.

It happens - some contracts generate near the KSC, others somewhere really far away. To get to the far ones in a timely manner, you have, as far as I can tell, two choices: turbojets, or intercontinental ballistic missiles (use the Trajectories mod to predict where they'll end up... I find it really fun actually). Also, if the contracts stipulates "above x meters", you can even do it from orbit, although you have to be quick to perform the experiment when you're moving at orbital speed.