Captain H@dock

This is an awesome project. I'm definitely bookmarking this thread. I don't know if Raster Prop Monitor allows for that, but do you intend on having a real glass panel by adding external small screen on the console? (such as small USB screens)

In 0.90 I had tundra biome reading over there... But that's one use I wasn't able to replicate in 1.0.2, though I didn't try hard. I mostly use it for short takeoff/landing practice. And because the airstrip there is flatter than the level 1 runway.

When I was typing it, I was reminded of the excellent guide to RDVing with an asteroid on an hyperbolic trajectory outside of Kerbin SOI. And if the target is on a collision course, you could even try to RDV in advance (for a huge dV budget). But like you said, freak accidents won't provision for the extra cost, so it's not really worth it.

It's probably a freak accident. Likewise you get sat contracts for orbits that clearly are too close to the mun (though you don't have to sync it with the actual mun phase). As for trying to complete it, why not having the rescue pod wait in orbit of the mun? Wait for the next encounter, and depart the mun post target change of course. Then you just have to catch up with the target before it completes its next orbit (this will obviously require slightly more aggressive RDV maneuvers than usual). Note: I've never tried that strategy and it would probably cost a lot more in dV than what these rescue was supposed to, making it less profitable.

I'm guessing there might be a way to slingshot yourself to a suborbital away from the sun then arrange for recapture at another body either on the way up or down, in order to save on dV. Still, they'd have to pay a lot more for me to even consider planning such a thing. What I'm saying is: you've made tourists quite cheap kerbals. Where are the Kerbal millionaires?

Oh, I didn't think about using these side engines... I'll give it a try tomorrow! There still are on a 90 science node, though, right?

I've seen someone say he returned from the edge of Kerbin SOI without a heat shield. As long as it's just a return pod (decouple all engines and tanks), you should be fine. The heat has reduced a lot with the latest updated (more accurately, I'd say the drag has increased, which means you're spending a lot less time at hypersonic speeds, which was where the heating was really dangerous). So give it a try. Though at this rate I wouldn't be suprised is there's a 1.0.3 to rebalance a bit the heat. I spent the entire week being scared of re-entry, and now I seem to be be able to apply the old 0.90 strategy (just wait for the low atmo to slow you down, then open the chute). Of course that wouldn't work with the entire rocket stage still attached to your pod.

I'm interested in design of light early tech planes capable of completing these "do something above xxx". The turbo jet isn't an answer (by the time you get it, you're done with these explore kerbin contracts...), and my rocket carrying planes don't really get to 19K. My quick attempts at rocket carrying planes fell quite short of reaching the required alts due to drag. If you can't build a plane to do these in one go (ie: do at least two climbs to 19K, as well as being able to land on rugged terrain), then these contracts aren't worth the time.

So i've done a bit of testing from a sandbox, and the default settings of the mk16 seems to be enough to come to a stop, at least on near sea level terrain: From a mun altitude, i've done re-entry tests with the following craft (chute has default settings, .04 atmo and 500m): As long as the Pe is above the surface, craft is slow enough by 5000 m above sea level that you can open the chute (around 220 m/s). Far from enough heating to display any bar, except the goo/solar panel ones, but they survive. The chute deploys completely at 500 and by 160 you've reach final descent velocity (around 6m/s) For a side entry to the planet Flames until 3 to 4000 meters, but you can safely open the chute as soon as the flames are out you're fine. From there it's similar to above and you have reached 6m/s by 140 m. For a zero orbital velocity dive Flames until 3000m but otherwise similar. Again, 6 m/s by 140 m/s For zero orbital velocity followed by a full power dive (3300 upon hitting the atmo): Flames until quite late, but you eventually reach 240 m/s on drag alone. From there you can open your chute. Despite staging between 1000 and 2000 above sea level, the final descent velocity wasn't reached until 110m, despite the full deployment happening at 500. But that's a crazy re-entry profile! (and i'm sure some might call that soupy to stop on drag alone. I don't think this would have happened in 1.0.0) So i'm a bit lost regarding what happened to my chutes earlier today in career, because I definitily crashed a couple of time at 30 m/s in the ocean.... But until I can reproduce it, I've got nothing to show.

I've done a bit of testing, and i'm unable to reproduce what I've experienced on my career craft. A simple pod with a mk16, two solar panels, a goo and a heatshield should work with the mk16 default settings (and have slow down enough by 140 above sea level). Full report in the support section post: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/118682-Mk16-Parachute-Slow-To-Fully-Deploy

I have bugs with the deployment height today. In my case i was returning from orbit and from the mun. It wasn't left at default height (sometime 50, sometime 2800), but was never completely deploying. Only now (from reading here) do I realise there was an update last night, which might account for the very different behaviour i'm seeing on my career craft. But the chutes seem to have a problem... (radial also failed to deployed completly. I'm off to reproduce now) EDIT: From reading the rest of this thread, this might not be a bug, but a feature (chutes now slowing you down a lot more progressively?) Very un-expected... But then I had never used heat shields so far, so the chute sure needed some nerfing! Still i feel for the poor new player that is one week through his career, and suddenlty doesn't understand what is going on....

To be more accurate, here's my design (no radial decoupler unlike what i said above). I can recover about 50% by landing the three pods on the shore. That should make a two tourist contract between 15,000 and 20,000 net. Not as bad as it seems.

Could also be a bug. I don't understand why accepted contract would disappear, but I think I had my orbit contract disappear while attempting it (but with A LOT of reverts and quicksaves).

Three stacked (alternating orientation) mk1 pod with radial chutes, a decoupler, a big white SRB, two radially decoupled RT-10 at the bottom. 8,000 ish on pad, 4,000 ish from recovery? Not really worth it when you get 10,000 from sending one of these tourist up.... But that's unlimited funds if you're willing to lauch 50 of these. (tune the top SRB thrust obviously). I made it to 500,000 funds before updating anything else than the contract building, and staying full SRB (my srb and radial decouplers where from testing contracts). But then i don't really play normally (also, i'm one of these hard with revert/quicksave guys.). And I agree that the grind is what will keep new player from being overwhelmed. Learn to build and launch, take baby steps. Is it reasonable for Apollo 11 to be your second of third launch?

Even these are not available in level1 VAB (no action group button). But i wonder if editing the craft part to set action group would work...

KSP Version: 1.0.830 Windows 32bit What Happens: When switching off heat overlay, the remaining parts (attachment points) of a previous staged radial decoupler keep their overlay on. Mods / Add-Ons: None Steps to Replicate: 1) Put a rocket with a radial decoupler on the launch pad 2) Enable heat overlay from the debug menu (Alt+F12 - Physic / Thermal / Thermal Debug Color) 3) Stage the radial decoupler (space bar) and wait for it to get destroyed [*] 4) Disable heat overlay from the debug menu (see 2) [*] Leaving it on default ejection force should do the trick. Refer to picture in doubt. Result: The attachements point of the radial decoupler are still red (heat overlay is still on) (see picture) Severity: Very low (debug menu enabled function) Fixes/Workarounds: Make sure the decoupler ejected section isn't destroyed Other Notes/Pictures/Log Files: Any decoupler does the trick. It should be a pretty obvious fix. I initially figured that out in flight, so i'm assuming it's not a corner case at all. If the part survives, i'm unable to reproduce. Makes sense. See below (ejection force was zero, and the part was placed very low).

I think everyone will suggest you wait a bit until your mods are updated, and you will be able to get your tailored game experience back.

The moon? I did 5 flights on RT-5 alone already*. I'm not going there any time soon. * Including hitting the 450m/s with a RT-5 + command pod + parachute craft. This one requires a flat take-off (barely cleared the VAB)

The double arrow was a KAC addition.

Today i started KSP 1.0. On an SSD, you can't even see the squad monkey head completly fade in.... Edit: Turns out the game is really fast if you'd empty the ksp folder this week and assumed Steam would notice... Edit: I seem to be getting quite a drop in performance on my below par computer. I've already reduced pretty much all the settings, but i've got lag episode happening quite often (every 30/60 s) while flying around the KSP area. It's weird because i was fine on 0.90 most of the time, but that's not unexpected. Now the question is: is it because of rendering, or physic computations.... anyway the planes behaviour seems much more realistic.

Visually, that's quite a step up from previous trailers!

The video is really good.........

It's hard to tell, maybe this is not happening for every out of bay crafts. Maybe it's only when struted the way it was, or released the way he did it. Hell, I found a [minor] bug in my code last friday, and it's been in production for more than 6 months. Despite a really good test coverage. It was a corner case, and not generating any breakage (unlike the bug we're talking about here). Edit: While i agree with what max said about people doing bad bug reports... look at how this bug was reported! It wasn't even reproduced, he just said that closing the doors seemed to have made the surfbord loose all aero properties. In a live stream. Yet that was enough to get the bug fixed. So this is a counter example.

Live from the twitch chat: One down. ninja'ed..