heng

would be helpful to know what you where doing in the first place... you do know, for example, that you can set the maneuver node to next orbital pass? that, if your current intersection ist at 1000km, you can just wait and see what happens after that? wait one orbit and look again, maybe now it's only 750km? wait one more... this is slow, but sometimes necessariy due to d/v restrictions... are you in the same plane? are you circular, is your target? are you ahead or behind your target? and don't despair, docking/rendevouz is one (if not the most) difficult maneuver to master early on. - not necessarily the most efficient, but a working method: a) circularize your orbit slightly below (or above) the target's PE (or AP) (the closer you are, the easier it gets, but the more time you have to spend waiting in step d)) go co-planar, i.e. set inclination to 0° (burn at the ascending/descending nodes down/up) c) make your orbit elliptical, so that your PE (or AP) matches up with targets AP (or PE) (the more precisely you time this (e.g. maybe now, maybe one orbit later), the less time is spend waiting in the next step...) d) watch the closest encounter markers for a while. - say it starts at 1000km and goes down to 700 after one revolution - wait... it will be 400km... then 100km. - the very next pass it would overshoot to 200km, the other direction. we do not want that to happen. - hence now is the time to burn at your PE (or AP) (the one i meant in c)) - burn slowly to adjust your AP (or PE) to match the target's orbit - keep watching the encounter markers!!! e) you should be able to setup an encounter as close as you like. <1km if needed. this encounter will happen roughly one orbital revolution after your burn! once you are at the encounter, you need to match velocities... not going to write that up here... and docking is a whole new can of worms...

wow... that is one way to do it... again, wow. good luck! that sounds awesome.

Just wondering... Did someone ever do a complete research? i.e.: - all biomes (including KSC's) - all situations - full research (4 experiments each, i think) You'd probably need hyper-edit and an attention span bordering insanity, but whoelse could have this other than KSP players? *g* Well, I won't do it! Just wondering... I expect the outcome to be pretty boring! But it could hide the hardest easter egg of all time...?

Basic idea: Instead of having stranded Kerbals magically pop up as a contract, have the survey scanners suddenly find a distress signal - which will lead to a lone Kerbal sitting in a capsule/destroyed hab on the surface in need of rescue. - M700 Survey Scanner: : location accurate to plus-minus 2.5km - M4435 Narrow-Band Scanner : location accurate. - Surface Scanning Module : on the surface. gives you direction to signal. can be used for triangulation Advanced idea: Connected story contracts... Contract one: "We heard of some trees that look astonishingly unlike normal trees. Do a visual survey above 15km of the area." (Crew report - general area) Contract two: (only available after completing above contract) "The trees turned out to be no trees at all, unless genetically modified trees were created to look exactly like a crashed spaceship. Go there and investigate." (Crew report, landed, general area) Contract three: (only available after completing above contract) "XY Kerbal seems to be alive and has left the ship. Find him!" (Rescue Kerbal by finding him/her (see scanners above) and return him/her home) Contract four: (only available after completing above contract) "After debriefing, XY's original mission turned out to be <general manned mission>. Help her/him complete it." (must use rescued Kerbal to complete mission

Uhura Kerman? :-D

10 pages and noone reacts to the audio revamp?!? *weeeeeee* does that mean Chatterer will get to be stock finally? my favourite and absolutely essential mod!

next-gen Fat-Boys©! I'd buy one. air bags for cars. depending on size, gaming keyboards with really smooth key press feel. f*cking mosquito swatters. fall protection for breakable expensive stuff. like mobiles/cell phones, glasses, watches, me... shock absorbers for high-end turn tables... a free floating dark side of the moon record? anyone?

Well, since it is possible - and often the desired outcome - of an inclination change to give you an NaN as ascending node value, i assume it is not technically a bug per se. It seems, your ship/probe/base/planet was somehow reduced to a very very tiny version of itself... so tiny, that the resulting calculations result in either extremly high or very very close to zero results. So in all likelihood you, sir, divided by zer... Oh Shiiiiiiii

In space only Scott Manley can hear you scream. (movie reference for us old farts)...

well, the interesting part is in the last leg of the novel. i don't want to spoiler it, so i can't be specific, but the flight path of the Hermes will be tricky to recreate... especially if you want to go for the two refuelling missions around Kerbin. (i probably can do the first one :-D) and the last maneuver? you really think this is doable in KSP?

YES! This! Depending on how well you performed during the mission, how brave and/or stupid they are...

yeeeeeessss.... in theory you could go to Duna in a 100ton ship with a single Ion engine and lots of patience... but you would need to burn several times at PE. doing lots and lots of Kerbin orbits... and then hit the right ejection angle at precisely the right time. I have no clue how to plan this kind of maneuver in KSP. If someone could tell me, I'd be happy to try it... until then? TWR it is. :-)

careful, they will in all likelihood burn during reentry. can't find the thread right now, but someone claimed, that chutes have four stages a) packed and waiting for staging (good) staged (active, not yet deployed. may burn during reentry!) c) deployed (moderate drag) d) open

only made it to Duna successfully so far (twice). my Jool mission was eaten by some bug or other, but they didn't have enough fuel to return anyway :-( © good old days. (pre-v1.0) currently struggling in career to get enough science to get the claw to get my Mun lander back to base, which has enough science to get the claw to... hmpf. BTW, is aerobreaking on Jool still a thing with the v1.0(.2) aero?!? I mean, my previous ship wasn't really aerodynamically build, wasn't required pre-v.10...

Can we pull a Felix Baumgartner v2.0? LKO EVA -> de-orbit via jetpack -> splash down -> be alive enough to be recovered... I do know, that a Kerbal can survive the reentry heating. (though not landing in the mountains. poor Erike) I do know, that a Kerbal can survive a 40m/s splash down. (damn you, non-fireproof parachutes) Is there enough monopropellant to slow down sufficiently? Will there ever be personal parachutes? Will there ever be a mod that allows Kerbals to go fishing? -- there i am, proud employer of two kerbals returning from LKO... without a ship. and of course i got ninjae'd _and_ one-upped: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/122171-Kerbals-too-tough-%28EVA-self-rescue-from-munar-orbit%29 kudos for that stunt!

What about strategies? You can easily cash in a lot(*) of science by converting funds from survey contracts. As for the "horizontal rocket" argument: So what? Launch a plane (think 'Sänger') as a first stage. Granted, juggling the two vessels after separation will be tricky, but hey, that's what you asked for. -- (*) granted, you would have to do a lot of contracts, but hey, you will be doing these anyways, right?

2) no videos of him eating - There will be, once he gets hungry. With his fuel efficiency this is expected to happen somewhere 2018.

ah, sorry. misunderstood you question. then yes, pilots are the most easily replaced specialization of the three. if you can live without having to automacigally find the right spot on your navball - which only takes a few seconds tops. but think about your poor passengers, would Bob and Bill really accept leaving for a two years Duna mission without Jebediah? I mean, pilots are not strictly necessary, but the human... err kerbal touch of it just feels right (unless you are flying with Andreas L.) ;-)

Crew Reports! EVA Reports! Surface Samples (after unlocking those) taking the experiment out of goo canisters and junior labs, so you do not have to return those heavy things from Mun... Pushing... getting out and pushing the return pod sometimes really is the only way to get home... rarely, but it does work. planting flags!

And Scott Manley has done a nice introduction/walkthrough for early career mode on his channel: it's well worth the time to watch. the tricycle for doing the KSC science stuff is called "Cheating One" in my save, though :-D

I assume the spirit of the challenge would forbid us to bring mining equipment? Even if it is stock as of v1.0?

old post (2013), search function failed me, so here it is again(?). (no sound(*)) Woah.... That is a lot of debris out there... from just one collision. found it today via http://listverse.com/2015/05/13/10-spectacular-satellite-collisions/ (not all are "spectacular") -- (*): it's realistic, because it's in spaaaaace... or my speaker broke

The Mk1-Command Pod already has a rounded bottom in its model... supposedly this was standing for the integrated heatshield... now that we do have actual heatshields, shouldn't the pod get a flat bottom? currently it looks kinda weird when you stick an additional heatshield below that - especially if you make it detachable (unnecessary, but cool to jettison when the parachute deploys) :-D

Good: 1.0 Wooooohoooo!!!! Bad: Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh! I took a break for a couple of months, started last week again. Got my career to about the point where i stupidly upgraded a building with th last of my credits. so i had 5770 credits left and no free contract slots. took me the whole evening to clobber together na craft able to complete the survey missions, used 5640 cr to launch... sooo proud *g* this morning: v1.0 and i have to start all over again. *sigh*

Cool read!!! thanks. Check the ESA videos on this topic, too: (11min) Ascent (20min) Docking (20min) Undocking/Return