Jaeleth

I'm not sure I understood the first question but once the prograde burn is complete, try to plan the normal/ anti-normal manuever close to kerbin and check it's effects by shifting focus to eve. Note that the normal/anti normal will shift your trajectory up or down but to get the correct eve insertion at a specific orbital inclination, if that's what you want, you shall, probably have to burn a little radial or anti-radial resulting, in practical terms, in an advance or falling back of your trajectory relatively to eve's path, resulting in larger or smaller inclination angle. So, to try to answer your first question: to get an insertion with elliptical orbit and a certain inclination, even polar, you have to burn normal or anti normal close to kerbin and radial or anti-radial enroute, not too far, because it will be less controllable, and not too close, because you will need lots of dV. second question i think it is possible to do that with a single burn, never tried that one; what happens, sometimes, is that the traveled distance is so big that the slightest speed variation in the first burn might get you off the SOI of the target. as a bottom line, for long flights, i never do it in a single burn, always do a middle burn for optimal insertion point, but then again, those enroute burns, if at an adequate distance, are so tiny that, many times, can be performed with a gentle blow of the RCS thusters and, therefore, are no factor to fuel consumption, I approached Duna, this way.

an inclination of 63.4 means an angle of 63.4 degrees between the orbital plane and the equator. You must launch as close as possible to this angle, initially, in order for plane adjustments to be minimum aftwards. The solution: 1. Put your rocket on the launchpad 2. Fast forward time until KErbin rotates to a longitude where KSP intersects the desired orbital plane (KSP directly below the orbital diagram, you can see this in MAP view) 3. Check where the small dots in the orbital diagram are flowing to (southwardslike or northwardslike). 4. Launch rocket 5. If the small dots were flowing northwardslike, when it is time to initiate the gravity turn, tilt you rocket towards heading 63 ( more or less ), use the navball. If the dots were flowing southwardslike it's a clockwise orbit, when it's time to do the gravity turn, tilt your rocket towards heading 63+180 = 243. you should end up with an orbit very similar to the desired one. Minor plane adjustement and you'll be there and then it's just a matter to prograde at Pe so that your Ap is coincident with desired Ap, eventually a little radial / anti-radial burn and tha's it

Correct! Even on a minmus landing, wich is easy enough, it is more efficient to forget about precision landing and, rather, land within 1000m and have at least one of the terminals on wheels, either the ship to be refueled or the ground fuel truck/refinery. Like this it is prettier, though - - - Updated - - - my suggestion: one large, autonmous rover that does it all, medium resolution scan, high resolution scan, drill, store, and refine, with, say, 720 units empty rocket fuel tank and a large monopropellant fuel tank. Use scans to find a good spot, preferably as near to the equator as possible, go there and plant the drill. (This minimizes dockings) Once you got a good spot, land other fuel tanks near your spot. Now you have plenty of storage and got yourself a base, don't even need to attach the tanks, just make sure you can attach the drill with each of them, when needed. drill-store-drill-store..... one or 2 shuttles to take fuel to orbit to refuel larger ships... Only when needed no kerbals needed whenever possible pick only low gravity moons for ore drilling, you will waste less fuel diverting to their orbit than going down and up to and from the main planet... and that's it This, probably, the most fuel efficient / workload efficient operation, maybe. Although, not very pretty to look at.

The closest to reality would be to refine on surface, so that's what I do. Besides if you send ALL ore up where are you going to get fuel to send it up? refine only a bit and transfer to orbit the rest of the ore for...er... Refining again? 2 refineries? Or take a lander down with enough fuel to get UP again, thus wasting more energy on lowering the orbit and landing? No, the most logical path is the most energy-wise one: refine on ground

Career mode is the real challenge, specially in hard mode. And it's more fun too, since you can manage the entire program an choose the appropriate science path and investment strategy.

Just climb... I don't think there is a single aicraft today that can go even mach 2 at 500m MSL... Top are some fighters, and the B1, which can go a little above mach 1 before they enter VNE.

Yes, but I suppose this is optimal dV, that is, for the "lower as kerbaly possible" vehicle drag. If one decides to launch a pancake into space, it will be much different, unlike the old days where differences resulting from ship design wouldn't make such a big difference.

The advantge of the fins is that the counter force grows as the rocket tries harder to flip, and the response is immediate, unlike vectoring, which is limited to a small angle and is constant force and depends on the PID used, read below. To worsen things kerbal PID controller is not that good, many times it induces oscillation instead of stabilizing, having more reaction wheels may help counter this effect though, or flying with no SAS. This is the result of too much vectoring. In fact, in kerbal, too much vectoring engines may destabilize the rocket instead of stabilizing it, I have some (poorer) designs on which I had to switch off most of the gimbals so that the damn thing could go straight up. As one example from a rocket with both fins and vectoring thrust we have the biggest of them all so far, and yet never failed, saturn v - - - Updated - - - Yes it does... But then again, placing a "light bulb" shaped payload, packet with tons of gear at the top of a candle-like rocket doesn't looks good either, and many kerbals do it... So... We have to add fins on second stage when needed... we kill one wrong with another... Eheh

- - - Updated - - - It works with me... All the time, besides, it is the logical choice; of course, the size of the fins does matters, try to change that. A lot of vectoring engines is not the most efficient or reliable way, something must be wrong in your design, turn forces overlay and see where those big red arrows are coming from. In 1.0.2 a rocket should be nothing more than a cilinder maybe with a slightly bulkier section a the top to enclose the payload and, at most, with a ring of boosters... ONE ring of boosters... If it's more than this, it's not a good design. If you need an ugly mass of engines stacked sidways like a pancake, to launch a payload, redesign it so that it can be launched in parts and assembled in 0 gravity.

SSTOs aren't supposed to be the logical choice for more than Low orbits. Think of an SSTO like a small boat. You bring the large vessel near shore and the small boat carries passengers and cargo back and forth. That's the most efficient way to do things with current technology or near future, forseeable, tchnology ( actually, current tech does not allows for SSTO's, but that's because Earth is a "little" bigger than Kerbin ) The fun in this game is to achieve great things using the real laws of physics, if we are to break them (too much) this wouldn't be Kerbal Space Program, it would be more like a shoot'em up... Not funny at all Still, you do have a point in one thing, a "turn it all off" buttom is always appreciated, whenever possible let the player costumize the game for the level of realism he/ she wants... Note: I always designed and flew my planes in 0.9 as they should in real life. When 1.0 came only a minor tweak in my SSTOs and they were back in business, doing what they always did, carry people, fuel and small cargo between Kerbin and LKO. As for my aircraft, they even fly better in 1.0.x than previously

SSTOs aren't supposed to be the logical choice for more than Low orbits. Think of an SSTO like a small boat. You bring the large vessel near shore and the small boat carries passengers and cargo back and forth. That's the most efficient way to do things with current technology or near future, forseeable, tchnology ( actually, current tech does not allows for SSTO's, but that's because Earth is a "little" bigger than Kerbin ) The fun in this game is to achieve great things using the real laws of physics, if we are to break them (too much) this wouldn't be Kerbal Space Program, it would be more like a shoot'em up... Not funny at all Still, you do have a point in one thing, a "turn it all off" buttom is always appreciated, whenever possible let the player costumize the game for the level of realism he/ she wants...

If you're playing on a laptop, or "laptop like" keyboard, check that the numerical keyboard function (fn) is disabled. Usually part of the numerical keyboard overlaps most of those keys. Does not solves the problem? Try to redifine those keys to see if it works.

Add 4 basic fins at the bottom of that stage. Increase reaction wheels, large ones, preferably, to make it more controllable. It has worked for me.

Wobbling seems to occur in 2 scenarios: 1. when the vehicle's ability to correct position is limited, either because is too heavy or because it is too long, i don't know the precise reason, thus making it respond slowly to the engine's inputs, thus overcontrolling, due to the PID controller response, and creating a positive feedback which increases the amplitude of the oscillation over time (resonance frequency achieved, in real life you can bring down a bridge with a large number of feet stomping it at an exact frequency), destroying the vessel or simply flippling it over. And the PID in KSP excels at finding that frequency 2. When the vehicle is not rigid enough, ending in a situation like 1. Solutions: 1. The Boeing 737 pilot way: turn it all off and fly it like a man! meaning you must turn off KAS and fly manually, it is not that hard with enough flight hours under the hood and on big rockets. It will bump around a bit but you will get it to orbit. (Worked with me) 2. If it is wobbly, add struts, and struts... AND struts... Make sure the struts are separated by stages and the stages are connected with another set of struts, if needed. ( always works, but doesn't so,ve the whole of the problem) 3. Maybe increase the number of reaction wheels, this will minimize, theoretically, the vessel's response time to the engine inputs, thus reducing the frequency thus preventing the PID from finding that wretched resonance frequency. (I never verified this one) 4. Lock gimbal on all or some of the bigger engines and add some side stabilization engines if needed (cant remember the name of those, they are the ones who resemble saturn 5 first stage stabilization engines). (Worked with me)

Now that you mention, what you say makes sense, however, experimentation showed me that a big truck is easier to control on, say, minmus, than a light rover, whatever reason, maybe the type of wheel i was using? as for a work around, a rear pointing engine will produce more acceleration than a downpointing one, since the downpointing one will only increase downforce, thus limiting accel. to the electric engine's capabilities while a back pointing one will increase speed beyond the rover's electric engine capabilities, sometimes, way beyond driver's capabilities too... on the other hand, a downpointing engine will increase controllability. On duna one could even try a spoiler, although i don't know if the low atmosphere density is to make such thing even feasible. - - - Updated - - - ah... Ha! Maybe you just given an explanation to my previous question , in a way... the truck i drive on minmus is, actually, NOT rigid... It has a midsection that tends to bend when I brake and it increases enormously the braking power. It was an unintended effect, since i had the midsection designed that way in order to refuel small probes that moved below it to access a docking port. On high gravity environments I have to brake slowly or the whole thing flips over from stored elastic forces sudden release. now this just gave the idea of a catterpillar-like truck, moving like a snake... Over rough terrain

Ah yes, steam, sorry, it won't work. That's why I always purchase from the publisher, not steam, I want to have total control of my software, unless steam gives a significant discount, which wasn't the case... - - - Updated - - - It is very rare that you damage your system with a hard shutdown, on a pc or laptop, it can happen but, very rare. In my whole life, maybe once or twice that happened to me. With several hard shutdowns, specially if one is performed right after the other, when rebooting, yes, it is likely. A single hard shutdown, from once in a while, after waiting some time for the pc to shutdown and seeing it freezing at some point, unlikely to cause problems.

Check if the CoT is along the same line that the CoM and the CoL, since you are using that many engines, engine placement can be a problem and the place you put them can Induce unwanted torque. Replace them by a, say, single flipper engine just to see if the problem persists. enable the forces overlay F12 to try to visualize what is happening displace the CoM further ahead, or the CoL further back, and put some canards, not wings, on the front to compensate for that. remember that the fuselage also yields lift. When speed increases, so does lift, i don't know if wing lift and fuselage lift increase proportionally with speed, if they don't, that could be the cause, the forces overlay will help you to find this. try to use less wingspan and more like a shuttle wing, a sort of delta. This should reduce drag at high speeds, caused by the wing, which i am not sure the game considers, but happens in real aircraft, anyway so, just to be on the safe side... That's why fighters have swept back wings and, say, a C152 Cessna has, practically, a square wing

Hi. I tried to run KSP_Linux 1.0.2 "out-of-the-box" on a laptop with Ubuntu 14.10 I run Launcher and then PLAY My System details: Memory: 3.7GB Processor: Intel Core i7 CPU M 640 @ 2.8Ghz x4 Graphics: Gallium 0.4 on NVA8 Disk: 241,9GB Toshiba Tecra S11-14R I had this problem with KSP 0.9 too, exactly the same. Everything that is OBJECTS, that is, KSC and the space/air craft are OK Everything that is GROUND, that is, not the water or the sky, is flashing like crazy with small green shapes changing at every instant with patches of black or blue sky between them. Note, the green lawn around KSC buildings is NOT affected. At other places on Kerbin, the same problem. On Duna, no problems. Maybe something related to the rendering of the green colours? Apparently the program renders Sky first and then places Water and Ground over it and THEN the objects, I'd say the problem is only with the GROUND, the parts where I can see black or sky is just the sky background behind transparent areas where it should have been ground. On this same machine, running Windows 7 x64, everything is OK Note: The game seems much more slower than running Windows. Ubuntu is a fresh install, maybe I should try to look for another graphics driver? If anyone ever had this problem, though, I'd like to know if it is possible to solve and how. Thanks in advance.

With 1.0.2 it is very easy (too easy), with 1.0 exactly the same space plane exploded in high atmosphere with no heat indication whatsoever and only the cockpit showing some signs of heat (faint pink colour) and some mk2 adapters i had on the sides. Now, explain that... Anyway, retested in 1.0.2 and burning at around 72km apoapsis to a periapsis of 60km overhead KSP at the moment of the burn, almost brings me to the spot and with a nice unpowered glide, to ksc. Just make sure to reduce angle of attack to prograde or slightly above when speed is reduced below 800m/s to avoid stall spining the shuttle ( well, is depends on the craft, anyway) as a reference, in real world aircraft AoA should be kept below 18o to avoid stall - - - Updated - - - Note: I do not use airbrakes since they are not used in real world reentry crafts and I try to keep my space craft as realistic as possible (i'd like to see an airbrake hold together on a mach 28 reentry...), this has also helped me port my 0.90 designs to 1.0 with minor changes too. s-turns yes, they do work both in game and real world - - - Updated - - - I tried a 40o AoA, turned sideways in order not to bounce off atmoephere, the same the shuttle used in real life... The ship exploded in high atmosphere. All in one go, like the structure cluldn't hold the tensions ( but the atmosphere is so thin up there... 40km+) I tried 0 angle of attack, and several other variations in between, the cockpit overheated and exploded in high atmosphere, but only showing faint signs of pink, the remainder of the craft reached surface, though, which is funny, since its drag, without the streamlined cockpit would be horrendous, still it glided well and the probe core did not overheated when entering the more dense layers of atmosphere, hell, maybe i should use my PC as heatshield for the pod... really dunno what was with 1.0 and that design, the same design on 1.0.2 re-enters perfectly and I cannot even get the faintest signs of heat on my way down... Oh, and by the way, 75x20 km is a pretty steep reentry angle, i always go for 75x60 and still it burned on 1.0, on 1.0.2 works wonderfully...

If you allow quicksave, any mode, even hard, is fairly simple, with hard mode maybe a little challenging at the beginning. If you don't allow quicksave any mode is suicidal, mostly due to computer crashes and some bugs and stupid mistakes like sleeping at the controls on a long flight while sitting on a nice couch with my laptop on my knees... yes, it happened to me, several times or warping too much to hurry things up and messing thw whole mission.

Has something been changed in reentry heat from 1.0 to 1.0.2? I was having a very hard time trying to bring back my SSTOs and, all of the sudden, I install 1.0.2 and the parts still do heat up but they don't explode at high atmosphere, almost for nothing, like they did in 1.0 even with a shallow reentry angle. and another question? Are parts damaged from heat? I had an SSTO with canards, when I lift off they were working, after being "baked" on reentry they do not move yes, I know, I shouldn't put canards on a spaceplane... It's a leftover from a 0.9 design that worked pretty well...

You wanna de-orbit a space plane that big?... Good luck XD in the past days, using dre i pointed at 40 km above ksp periapsis, but with the new drag model it won't work, I'd start at a periapsis of 50km over ksp and save the game before the burn, then try again, you'll get it at the 2nd or 3rd attempt... but this is the easy part, the difficult one will be NOT to burn... assuming you are on an equatorial orbit, anti-clockwise, of course...

The "kerbal way": if you are not entirely locked in these kind of contracts just let them gathering dust on the shelf and get back to them when you get to whiplash engine. When I was at the level I did em with ballistic missiles, yes, it is somewhat wasteful but considering the usually generous payment, it is still profitable, which is what really matters, and my patience has a price also . if you want to be on the economic side, though, and do not tend to fall asleep while piloting your slow flying plane ( yes, it happened to me, nore than once, lol... ) i'd advice a big plane with plenty of fuel and a detachable rover at the rear to land near the spot. In 0.9 you had to land them before going away for 2.5km, which implied very low dropping and a series of "aerobatic" manuevers to keep the plane flying at close range until the rover was on the ground, but on 1.0 you can put 25km between yourself and the parachuting rover so... Plenty of time as for ballistic suborbital planes, i had one of these, but the concept never worked too well, it will be less testing to your patience though, and will prevent many accidents of the "sleeping while flying" type by the way, you can land anywhere without breaking your landing gear, in this game, even a fast SSTO can do this providing it glides below, say, 80m/s, so you can always opt for going there, land, and retrieve the plane, it will be more expensive though...

There us no point in this unless the craft is inside atmosphere... Actually, it is quite an annoying feature. If you want to run max warp just go to space center, tracking station and choose to not fly ANY spacecraft, in this case you can run all the simulation at max warp, choose to fly one of them, and you can run only a altitude limited warp... Makes no sense... Unless a craft's trajectory passes through atmosphere, this should be fixed, since is quite a time waste to go to space center and then to tracking station in order to get a proper time warp speed, particularly because changing screens in ksp UI is not that fast...