Kesa

Provided that it would be neat to have the position set as the control part instead of the root, this is either a needed fix, or a suggestion to make. Oh, did I mention that there is a *eyes passing over your signature* ... nevermind

As far as I read, you're trying to do it the right way. I've never heard of such a bug and cannot figure out how to reproduce it. I guess you'll have to upload pictures, log and saves.

I can put ~6t in LKO with a full orange fuel tank and two BACC SRBs, so unless your probes are anything near 5t (which I really doubt since you can send them for 5000), your shuttle is way over powered. If you don't use jet engines, a shuttle will always be less fuel efficient than a rocket, because they use similar engines but carry more than the playload. If you use jet engines, fully recoverable SSTOs are so easy and fuel so cheap that a shuttle will be less competitive. In real life, fuel cost nothing, but there is nothing like a 100% fund recovery. A spacecraft mostly cost in engineering, which means building simple and expandable booster for rocket, and designing and maintenance of a though and reentry capable plane for shuttle, hence the difference of cost, reguardless the reusability. Also, real life shuttle have a higher safety standards, which make them more reliable for manned mission.

There are two things that takes time in KSP. processing and transmitting data. And no way to time warp them. I'd love to have time based mechanics (all of these, and even more), but if we want to warp them, we also need background mechanics. Since many mods add it, I don't know if this is an issue at all, but the very thing stock ksp doesn't have seems to be background mechanics.

May be in a sense that it can fullfill satellite contract.

Weird. There were no commands but was there an attitude control? (looks like no command at first glance at the right of the window). Unless you asked the satellite to orient prograde, I don't have a clue. I did not play that much, and haven't tried the last version yet.

A bunch of problems with contracts abuse can be solved with life support (so flag farming isn't that easy) and adding long term mission. Long term mission mechanisms already exists.

He is asking you to activate the LV-T45 liquid engine AFTER splashed down. Do not detach it before splashed down. Then activate it through the staging process. If you already have activated it, you can reorder your staging inflight the same way you do in the VAB. There is not much logic in that type of contract. It is bring that part there, then activate. If you also do find a use of that part in your craft, it's better, but it's not what the contract is asking.

I did not check, but I think the stabilize control prat prevents doing this. However, a similar abuse is possible for other contract (I just accidentally made one, switching from my mun lander (landed) to the KSC, to the tracking station then to a probe designed to land on test a part landed at the Mun. The company did not wait for the probe to land to pay me)

I forgot the brakes on a Mun rover, so I catched it rolling down at ~12m/s on EVA jet, hovering near it, and finally manage to get the RMB menu open long enough for me to click it (but not to take a pic )

Plane parts seems to have higher costs, maybe to encourage/balance reusability. But I agree Tail fin and AV T1 (no control, but can put a CoL far the CoM of a rocket) should be far cheaper. What's more, one could argue that rocket boosters are simple expendables designs, therefore not that expensive. They are precision device that cost manufacturing, reguardless there wheight. And 450 is not that much. If it really matters, you're probably building a ship that does not need RCS. Cantab answered. Gameplay-wise, they can be usefull to ballance crafts that have not the same inertia along each axis. For example a tall thin ship barely need more than reaction wheels to roll, few RCS far from COM to pitch/yaw, and more RCS to translate. As the stock RCS thruster aren't tweakable, linear port can be used to have the same sensibility along each axis, without having the same inertia. IIRC, solar panels are unlocked later. For big data transmission, you need both anyway. You make a point. But then why the price of a rocket is the sum of its part? And why can we recover a rocket a receive it's full price? IRL raw material (including fuel) are dirty cheap, but conceiving (R&D) and assembling them is the challenge, that's why reusable launchers are not especially better than expendable ones. You can see it at as a maintenance cost. I guess he was thinking of an interplanetary stage, no meant to land or take off. Will never happen.

Hard mode is fine. If you don't want to grind, go to the mun without patched conics. Hey, it's hard mode. Or go custom mode and reduce penalities.

To make designs easily flyable without SAS is a very interesting challenge! I just wish the stayputnik is available earlier.

10 times stock is also my multiplier. The balance in strategies is made so that if you take looping strategies, you lose a significant but reasonable amount of ressources. So if you want to make the science 10 times worthier compared to funds you also have to make it worthier compared to rep, or make rep worthier compared to funds, or something in between (If you balance just sci/fund, the cycle science -> funds -> rep -> science should create ressources). I find the balance between rep and science is good, so I'd rather make the rep worthier compared to fund. Maybe 5 times worthier compared to fund, twice less worthy compared to science.

There must be a limit. However, 18t is a bit abitrary (any other limit would be). I'm optimizing my design for 18t/30part count, and I love otimization, but when I can't stand, BAM, I upgrade and I don't care limit, until some deisgns reach the new limit and I must think again. I feel the upgrade are not enough progressive, but instead of adding new levels of building (even if I'd be glad there were four), we could have a slider similar to commitment while upgrading a building, so that by investing more fund, we could build up to 200t instead of 140t with a level 2 launchpad. Or up to 1100t if we want to spare some money. And each player would have to choose the limit under which he wants to fine tune his crafts.

Can you turn SAS on? If not, you're probably using the fly computer, which blocks SAS and fight user inputs. A picture would help

6.6 t Manned return. Part count : 15 More info Mission report I had two idea designing this vessel : - EVA thrusting and landing - low science requirement. The mission is doable in a real career right after your first orbit (and some landed testing contracts), not needing probes related parts (so does many other manned vessel I've seen, as 48 7s and jet engines are close to each other in the tech tree)

You mean it has a probe core in addition to MK1 cockpit? where is the nuke? Low complexity cargo SSTO : 20 part counts less than 18t full ~$ 17 000 tech level <= 5 except fuselage (basic jets) hands off take off : the first 80 seconds can be flown w/o input (user or asas) 1.7t in lko (playload ratio is 10 %).

Is there any mod that adds aerial base? so that we could save exit and come back from balloon, and mission like this one? I have an old computer, so I'm against increasing physic range with lazor beam and attach stuff to the ground. If not already, could we use the behaviour of lanching clamps? Note that while no part touches the ground, the vessel is considered Landed (KER hud, at the right of the altimeter)

IIRC, there is a mode that does it. Called Sandbox.

there is a mod that compute n body physics in ksp, but only for the active vessel. Edit : ninja'd. there are at least two modes that aim to simulate nbody physic (orbit manipulator and principia)

I think they should add customizable tab just like they did in the VAB. That way, your rocko 48 7s and command seat would not be in the same tab as your mother ship, or as your Duna glider. I agree, but you kinda feel pressed to fullfill them all the first time you see new ones. Nontheless, fineprint add markers for survey mission on map view, even from contract you do not accepted if looking from traking station. I personnally do not find ugly, but there should be a way to deactivate the marker, and to now whether that one comes from an accepted contract or not. You should have a look at Mission Control Extended, IIRC it does add such features.

The first parachute is called mk16 Nice thread! I've started too many career to restart an other one, but your approach looks great! very instructive not only for new players. I'm feeling impatient you include Griders segments, as we can do so much things with them.

I was thinking the same until now IRL, this is also called a gravity turn. An ideal gravity turn is made at full throttle and speed is killed exactly at touch down. But precise timing and high TWR/ full thrust matter less than for a suicide burn. My thumb up rule is burn when impact time < speed / (2 acceleration) (time to impact is given by KER) It's essentially a rough generalisation of suicide burn (it is a suicide burn if you fall straight and substract gravity to acceleration). It's pretty fuel efficient, but not that accurate. I'll try your method Slashy

That's quite hard without rockomax 48-7s nor jet engines. Congrat! Also, solid fuel booster are very inefficient mass wise. Try replace you booster with one or two LV t 30. How to fit two lv t30 in an efficient non ugly way under your rocket? this is a question I haven't been able to solve. But a single LV T 30 can handle 18t. that will seem slow but it will be fine. If it's uncontrollable, add some winglets at the tail. 24 77 is pretty useless, appart for aesthetic purpose. I would have love to see radial engines having a 10 to 30 ° gimbal, like the shuttle engines. That would make them very usefull to balanced assymetric craft. And maybe no gimbal for this tiny over powered 48 7 s. Also, It is far to cheap! My point was that attachement nodes seems to have been thought as part of the difficulty of the game, and even then radial engines are under powered. The more I think, the less I feel it's cheaty. It should be doable without alt F 12 (though Katateochi has a very nice workaround with normal grider segments!), as this is a pointless restriction (it's just stupid that a small cube of struts requires as much science as a turbojet, and it increases part count). And crafts abusing of part clipping (yours is not) could be punished with aerodynamic and structural drawbacks. Also, I really have a problem with the 48 7 s because it is even better than most bigger engines for most purposes. In a limited extend, part count discourage you to abuse of them in early game, but its irrelevant. I'd prefer there was some aerodynamics in KSP, and thrust to area ratio would matter, so 48 7 s will be a poor atmospheric engine.