KBoy420

This +1. Thanks. I saved them right into Kerbal Space Program>Ships>VAB but did not have :allow stock ships" checked. Thanks for the help guys!

Hi All, Just started installing some craft files into the correct directory. The craft files will not work with any existing saves (and in fact, there are NO crafts available to load on a save file), but works fine with a new start. Is this normal or did I install incorrectly? Thanks.

Watching Aliens currently. In space, no one can hear you scream. Love how they have pulse rifles and grenade launchers and the smart gun, flame throwers, and Hicks pulls out a sawed-off, "for close encounters".

Minaminaminamus

Bill is my go-to test pilot. Surprisingly, I've managed to get him out of some pretty bad "accidents" just in the nick of time. Bill is my most experienced pilot just because he tests everything before Jeb gets it.

Thanks, guys. This forum is very helpful. I had been trying to use a small de-coupler to carry the rover. Problem was on the Mun, it would decouple but the rover was getting stuck on the lander. Not sure what was going on. I tried using docking ports but couldn't get one to attach to the rover. Didn't know I only needed to use one if there was no return trip planned. Will give this a try later today.

Wondering if it's possible to use the AGU to carry a rover to orbit and "release" the klaw to drop the rover? Is this possible? I haven't been able to find a way to get the rover attached to it. Thanks.

Bill is gone. Any suggestion of such a rescue operation is merely wishful thinking.

I had to say good-bye to Bill, Tedrim, and Thompile. They were on their way to the Mun in order to collect surface samples. This was also the first multi-Kerbal exploration (Jeb has already logged 3 missions and it was time for the B Team to get some flight time). The launch went extremely well and the lander successfully landed on the Mun. Unfortunately, this is where the mission went awry. Upon the first EVA, Bill left the safety of the lander to explore. Upon engaging his personal RCS thrusters there was a catastrophic failure, which launched poor Bill on suicidal trajectory. After bouncing more than 2 km away from the lander, Bill was unable to move. There was life in his eyes, however, so a rescue mission was planned immediately. Tedrim was next out on an EVA in order to render aid to Bill. Unfortunately, Tedrim called off sick the day training was held at KSC on personal mobility in space. This meant this was Tedrim's first time actually using his thrusters. Upon disembarking from the lander, Tedrim was unable to control his thrusters and ended up taking out both solar panels which were providing all electricity to the lander. Once he got his bearings set, Tedrim was off to help Bill. Unfortunately, Tedrim was not paying attention to his horizontal speed and ended up traveling across the Munar surface at close to 50 m/s. Unable to get himself back under control, Tedrim crashed into the Munar surface and was never seen again. A poof of gray smoke cleared away leaving no trace of Tedrim. Scared out of his mind losing his two friends Thompile made the unwise decision to lift off of the surface of the Mun without planting a flag. Upon initial liftoff, it was observed that the fuel tanks were quickly running dry. Thompile, after losing 2 of his friends, decided not to be stranded in space and die a slow, hungry death. Upon reaching 4km above the Munar surface, with barely enough fuel to complete the turn, Thompile re-oriented the craft for a crash trajectory into the surface. Bill might still be alive up there, but with no flag or lander nearby, it will take some time to find him. It was a bad day in KSC.

Hugely helpful. Also explains why I could not attach a rover to a decoupler that I was trying to make. Thanks. So what you are saying is that you may need to select parts, place them in the screen, and then grab them at exactly the point you want to connect at? Ok thanks.

Well that answers the first part of my question...the more pressing issue is why I am unable to get parts to "attach". Google searching isn't providing any meaningful answer for me. Thanks.

So I'm sure this is a simple question but I need help with building. Is there a cheat sheet with all the hot keys? Anyway, I see all these posts on here of what you guys create, and most of the stuff is just mind blowing. I have so much trouble getting parts to attach, so I mess around with symmetry options and angle snap on/off, etc. But I look at some of the plans, and see that many use 20 or 30 individuals wings to create a single large wing. How do you even do this? When I try to attach part with angle snap off, I can place them, and even when they intersect with other parts, they don't "attach" if that makes sense. And when you go to launch, those non-attached parts are not part of the vessel upon launch. Am I missing something? My creativity has been curbed due to my lack of understanding on how to build things. Thanks.

Thanks Alshain. I'll give that a try later on.

Hi Guys, Successfully landed (and returned) from Mimus last night. Sure was a struggle. Realizing I could wait for a better alignment to not have to mess as much with inclination, I decided against it because I wanted to figure out how to use a node with more than just pro/retrograde. So I launched and made sure I would need to adjust inclination to pick up Minmus. I struggled for a half hour with the nodes and could sure use some practical help understanding navigating and how to use the nodes. I've read several tutorials and understand what the various directions do to your orbit, but I can't put it all together in practice. Nodes seem impossible to tweak gradually. No matter how hard I try the node adjustments happen to fast and too drastically. Is there a modifier key or some other way to more gradually adjust your nodes? How do you know how to change your orbit accurately? Are you just trying to "match up the lines" and look at them from different angles to get your inclination? I have Kerbal Engineer, can I be using that to help me with navigating and chancing my orbits? Somehow I was able to adjust my node leaving Kerbin and after messing with it for 20 minutes somehow managed to get a Minmus encounter. Honestly I have no idea what I did to get it to happen so I can't repeat it. Any tips or other suggestions would be great. Seems pretty daunting trying to get any further than Minmus at this point.

Beds Are Burning - Midnight Oil

Learn something new every day! Need to go do some more research now.

I am nowhere near qualified to answer this. But everything in space is in an orbit of something, right? So I don't see how it could be possible because a planet in orbit of a star, regardless of if it rotates on its own axis or not, would still be exposed to sunlight on all sides at some point throughout its orbit, no?

Sign up! I lurked for my first 40 or so hours in KSP. I am an active participant on close to 10 forums, and this one, by far, has been the friendliest group of people to me as a "new member". Particularly, taking the time to answer "noob" questions that have been asked hundreds of times without posting a smart-ass link or replying "READ THE STICKIES" convinced me. Class act group of people here and I'm looking forward to learning more and contributing more. Join up!

Thanks for the reply guys. Going to work on getting KER customized and utilizing a customized HUD. Didn't know those could be changed but that will be hugely helpful and free up some screen space. I'm definitely not opposed to using add-ons - I just firmly believe you learn to play games better by not using them first. You could play this entire game without thinking by using add-ons (from my understanding) and I just don't see the point of that. But using an add-on to simply display existing information in more use-able ways, would be silly not to if it is helpful. So I will definitely check out some of the others you all recommended. One final question, more along the lines of staging and how it relates to total vessel delta v. You design a 4 stage rocket, and the total delta v for the vessel is shown. Does this take into account the staging, or does that not matter? What I mean is say first stage is SRBs to get you going. I am matching terminal velocity well up until about 8k m when I activate second stage and my m/s drops significantly, dropping me well below terminal velocity but still accelerating. Did I just lose all my delta-v or did the vessel total delta v account for this inefficiency when calculating in the VAB? Hope that makes sense lol. Does in my mind.

Hi Everyone, So after logging around 60 hours in KSP without use a single mod (and having successfully orbited Kerbin, the Mun, and completing one successful Mun landing, 1-way lol - Tedrim will be up there a while), I decided to get Kerbal Engineer. I decided against MechJeb simply because KE would do what I wanted it to (mainly dV calculations while building). So I have a few specific questions regarding the use of KE: 1) The dV calculations are pretty straight forward. I also found a "map" showing the dV needed to get to various locations through the solar system, which was hugely helpful. At least I now know how much dV I should be building into my designs. What I am finding, however, is that even though I have 6,400 m/s of dV, I am still running out of fuel before landing on the Mun. According to the map, I should only need around 6,200 ms of dV for a complete Munar landing and return to Kerbin. So I am piloting my ship inefficiently, I assume. How can I use the data in KE to adjust my flying, staging, etc. so that I am able to get the dV out of my design? 2) In the surface display (either surface or orbit, can't remember), there is an atmospheric efficiency display, 0% to 100%. I am assuming that I want this as close to 100% as possible at all time, in order to maximize fuel/dV efficiency. What I am finding is that getting up to 10k-15k m, that percentage drops significantly. Does that mean I am moving too slow? 3) Is it more efficient to gain stable orbit around Kerbin before moving to the Mun? I had typically tried to wait until a good alignment and lift off Kerbin and then move right into a lunar/munar trajectory before establishing a Kerbin orbit. 4) TWR. I understand (in theory) what a thrust-to-weight ratio is comparing. But I do not understand how it pertains to my design and how to utilize the information correctly. 5) Any other useful tips for how to get more out of KE? Other tips on how I can better use it to adjust my designs and better evaluate how far I can go? 6) Any other add-ons that would help me get better at designing more efficient rockets? I don't want to use a bunch of add-ons. I tend to like to keep games stock and incorporate add-ons at a minimum. But KSP is no ordinary game so maybe there are others that would help. Thanks!

Thanks for the tip, Pecan. I jumped right into Career mode and to be honest, ended up with ALL these parts and had no idea how they worked or how they were intended to be used. Spent most of my time wiki-ing them all. Might give the Science mode a try and see how that goes with building smaller and adding fewer parts. When you unlock a new science it's like you are so excited at all the new parts, you just throw them all on there. And soon, you end up with a 300 ton rocket that doesn't go very far and uses up a ton of fuel. So far I've done everything without a single mod so I've been forced to manually learn the terminal velocities at a given altitude, etc. I'm really enjoying the game and am looking forward to the day when I can create more advanced ships and missions! PS - the space plane hanger is the devil. I tried to make a plane. Gonna stick with rockets for a while more ha. Jeb doesn't deserve that kind of abuse

Hey Everyone, Lurked enough and decided to join up on the forum and introduce myself. Just found out about this thing called KSP. Looked kinda cool. Build rockets and land on planets. Sounds neat. So I download the demo, fire her up, and utter frustration. Didn't know I actually had to know how rockets and physics work. ... is deltaV and is this going to be like Call of Duty anytime soon where I just point and click? So I head on over to YouTube, watch a few videos, realize just how far in over my head I am, and uninstall the demo. Boo KSP. Too hard. But then Steam tell me I should buy KSP. So I think about it, and I do, because I love this freakin' game and cannot get enough. With about 50 hours in to it, I have successfully crashed into the Mun 3 times. All 3 times I used rockets that were entirely fuel inefficient and weight 100 tons more than they needed to. Jeb has dies twice and I just learned there are more places than the Mun to go to! (Not sure how I will get to any of those places, yet...). Anyway, looking forward to learning more from the forums and actually learning how to be an astronaut. Now, back to figuring how how to not build a huge ass tower that still barely makes it to the Mun!