RainDreamer

I think there is a mod for that.Anyway, I just realize another thing: shouldn't this mean our lights would also have a much better range in airless body due to the light not being refracted? Stock KSP light has very horrible range from what I have seen.

So my first time getting to the mun, I foolishly just randomly deorbited for landing without checking where I would end up. Turn out I had to land on the darkside of the Mun, and I totally didn't prepare for the pure darkness below, despite the sun is still over the horizon, just setting down. You could guess what happened with a landing without any idea where "land" is. After that I learn to put lights on every spacecraft intending to land anywhere. However, this makes me wonder, how realistic is that? I understand that, since there is no atmosphere on the Mun, there would be no refraction of light that would give some visibility at sunset. However, how does light work in space then, exactly? Does it mean any side of a space object that is not facing the sun would be in complete darkness? Would there only be two stage between visible and not visible? Are there other kind of effects that may be in play to allow darkside of objects to still be somewhat visible?

Should get the Kerbal Alarm clock mod if you haven't, so you won't overburn right through stuff while doing other things/

I guess the reason sometimes adding more engine does increase my dV is because I have more fuel than my current engine can handle then?

Quick question from a new user: When you say: This only apply to Mission Control Contract only, right? And not for other contracts like orbital science contract? Would be a pain if I have to send a new science satellite to a planet everytime I got a contract to collect data there even when I already got a few in orbit already. Also, would this be in conflict with fine print?

Delta-V in spacecraft building, as I understand it, is the total amount of velocity that your vehicle is capable of achieving before it runs out of fuel. It varies based on mass of vehicle, thrust of engine, and fuel efficiency/specific impulse of engine. Note that some engine perform better in the vacuum of space, using less fuel to provide the same amount of thrust, and so will extend the delta V you have after you escape the atmosphere. Also note that mass of vehicle change through time as you use up fuel. Delta-V in planning flight path in space, is the change of velocity that is needed to get you where you need to be. You can see this whenever you plot a maneuver node in the game map mode, which will give you a read out of how much delta V you need to complete the node. You should at least get the Kerbal Engineer Redux mod. It does absolutely nothing to game play. But it gives you very important statistics like delta V, your current thrust, your horizontal/vertical velocities, etc. All of that is important for very precise maneuver. You can just fly without knowing all that, of course, but that would be like an airplane pilot flying ignoring 80% of their flight instruments. Most of the time it is fine. But sometimes when thing goes horribly wrong, Having those info let you know what happened and why it happened, so that you can design better vehicles in the future. There is a reason we have things like black boxes and stuff on airplanes.

Well, most of the time you can also right click on the part and use the "Run test" option that will appear if it is a part being tested - that is what I do to save the staging headache. Note that while the option appears all the time, it only counts toward the contract when all conditions are fulfilled.

For some reason when I see the word "Wap", I thought of something cute. But when I google it, nothing is cute about it. Anyway, I hope there are wifi on jool to run this drive. On a more serious note, can you use multiple drives to extend the bubble?

You can try this mod: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/55657-0-25-Kerbal-Joint-Reinforcement-v2-4-4-10-7-14?highlight=KErbal+joint+reinforcement It should help easing the wobbling, especially when loading in the vehicle, though depending on the size, it may still not be enough.

When it is faster to just reattach stuff in the editor because using the redo function would be even slower with a chance to crash.

Well, timing problems would be alleviated if there are just enough hooks to make essentially an orbital transportation ring around kerbin to make the chance that one of them will be a hit a bit higher. Sounds like a very kerbal solution though.

Well, it does work! Here are the struts on tiny AES decouplers: Here is when I decoupled them out into space and they detached from the satellites (then realized how stupid I was launching both of them away when I was going to only launch 1 sat at a time. Had to deal with all the wobbling as I move to the other side of the first one's orbit):

What I did for my first asteroid, as I was naive and didn't know better to equip more RCS and so on, was to abandon trying to wrangle the asteroid by my little rocket. Instead, I just plot out a node beforehand, release my claw, orient the rocket to where it needed to be pointed at, then switch to docking mode so I won't lose the direction as I maneuver around the asteroid and grab it again, this time with the engine toward the correct end of space. Seems to be much faster and more stable for me. But that was because I didn't have anything else to assist the asteroid turn like you do with other SAS and RCS module attached on the asteroid. If the asteroid already spin like hell, well, that is a whole another problem.

I thought that strategy is actually for those that either can't or not bothered to land close to KSC? It is even said to be used for recovering stuff half way around the planet in the description. If you can land close to KSC reliably, something to reduce launch cost seems better.

Man, even when the idea is not possible, the explanation of why it is not possible is also fascinating. Rocket science is so fun! I will try to attempt the rotating sling shot method to launch satellites to higher orbit then.

I didn't know you can attach struts directly on a decoupler. I think I can attach a few decoupler near the back end pointing up to space and attach struts on them, then decouple those when launching satellites. Gonna try that soon. Are those flexible struts? I thought they are hard struts so they would hold back the satellites and bend them when I try to move them with the hinges.

I just read on some spacecraft proplusion methods today and found this on wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyhook_(structure) It makes me wonder, can we replicate this using KAS with a lot of winches stack on top of each others, with a hook/magnet at one end? Then we can place that on some object with sufficient mass and velocity like an orbiting asteroid/space station, and we can just launch stuff to sub orbital trajectory, hookup, then get dragged along to orbit? It would save a ton of fuel from not doing orbital burn. Though I suspect that the joint might not be strong enough.

So I need help securing these 2 satellites in my SSTO cargo bay: Struts are obvious answers, but how? I need the thing to be able to detached at will, but without having to decouple it in the first place. The plan was to use those powered hinges at the back to point the satellites away from the back of the cargo bay before launching them. But if I use struts, the hinges will not be able to move the thing correctly (will just bend the satellite). Without struts though, the thing just fall through the cargo bay floor in 1G. I tried active strut, but since the plane, with the addition of the 2 satellites, is about 333 parts, when I tried to fly it with active strut, apparently it just froze at the "waiting for unity to catch up" process (and that is with Aggressive Active Texture management). To cap up, I need: A way to detach struts at will without the use of further mods. (got like 70 of them already, poor KSP). Or, a way to secure this payload in any other way that still allow the hinge to work correctly.

The antenna from ORIGAMI foldable antenna dishes for RemoteTech seems to return absurdly high values in fusebox (~58 for the big one, ~13 for the small one), even though in remote tech config file they have much smaller value (2.8 for the big one and 1.8 for the small one). I haven't launch anything with the two yet so I am still unsure if it is problem from them or from fusebox, will be testing them out soon. Edit: Oh, and apparently they are not recognized as RemoteTech 2 antennas, the filter does nothing to them.

Hey everyone, I'm new here. I just grabbed Remote Tech 2 recently, and is designing my first set of satellites to be used as relays. I have 2 questions: Is it possible to make a set of relay with just omni antennas for low orbit probe controls? A lot of the example I saw online always have a dish and an omni antenna. If not, is it possible to make a set of relay with Communotron 88-88 instead of the DTS-M1 everyone uses? The reason for these questions is because of my current design: It is extremely small and light, and also very, very cheap (~3.5k), allow it to be spammed around as disposable relay beacons. The thing though, it only looks good with the Communotron 88-88. With the DTS, if I want to keep the form factor when retracted relatively the same, I have to put it on the side, making it looks unsymmetrical (and for some reasons, it ticks me the wrong way). So I wonder if I could still use the Comm88, or I can just ditch the dish antenna altogether, since I got a set of specialized comsats with loads of dishes planned after launching these relays.