Hotel26

I'd be really sorry to hear that happening. I can empathize with the frustration. I would be tempted to say that the "Kraken" -- which is, contrary to popular belief, not actually some mythical monster, but a failure in the physics engine to "scale up" -- should have been eliminated once and for all long ago: except that I've used Unity (at work) and we encountered many aggravating difficulties with its physics. (Which incidentally was at that time based on the NVidia 3 physics engine.) My surmise is that this ridiculous situation is and has always been well outside the control of Squad and, short of writing its own, specialized physics engine (ain't gonna happen), there is nothing to be done about it. In general, to avoid the not-scaling-up problem my ignorant guess would be that docking parts should just become one body for physics and I could understand Unity may not support that model, nor want to, even for Squad. (Lots of speculation on my part so consider it with liberal use of a salt shaker.) To return to your situation and attempt to be constructive, I think I would play by my own set of Iron Man rules which allow me to configure the "game" with reloads but I only use them to retreat from situations such as this one to find a work-around. One's own errors stay in force. The game setting is not strictly needed to enforce this.

Speaking of relay satellites, I had built this little satpod called Beep and could launch two at a time. I believe it's got an RA-2 on it. So: good for putting around a planet. So, I started thinking about Deep Space Network Relays... Conceived this today and spent the evening happily testing it around Kerbin and Minmus. [I believe you can enlarge the first image and then just single-click through the whole set, if you care to do so. Deep Space Relay Network rides up on a Minotaur fuel tanker. Curiously, Minotaur has a central core with 14 Gigantor electric sails. Way more than it needs! That component gets pulled out by DSRN (the recent rebuild of Minotaur provides more clearance now to do so without having to shimmy and wiggle...), which then redocks on the other end. With a Vector and 24 Dawn engines, KER reports a total dV of 11 km/sec. The main use of the Vector is just for a nice, clean, fast exit from Kerbin SOI. The 14 sails in Kerbin-strength sunshine provide sufficient current to power all Dawn engines at maximum r.p.m. The 6 RA-100 comsats have PB-NUK with half lives of about 150 quadrillion years, so they should be switching phone calls/broadcasting TV long after we're all gone, just to give every other civilization that follows ours the chance to watch the Simpsons. Our small contribution to the universe. "From Kerbin, with love".

Brilliant work!! Outstanding. I could see you bringing that down and landing on or near the mountain top under chutes, being refueled and then going back to orbit -- and thus, having Eve shuttle service capability. In addition, if you landed out (i.e. lower altitude), you could pick a site that is also serviced by an ISRU refuel crew and then attempt to fly one hop back to the mountain base. Failing that, finding a workable, high plateau would make it all easy(er). Outstanding work! Well done. [Thanks also for the coordinates. Had been looking for a good, high place just recently...]

I don't know about this and maybe I should. You're not on the PS platform, are you?

I use Steam to download (when I know there has been a ne version released) and then I copy the KSP directory out to a separate location (away from Steam's reach) and I have 1.05, 1.2, 1.3 and now 1.4 all available, side-by-side. No surprised and I move up when I choose. In addition, I've been supported in the past when I was still on a back version but others who had this same capability to be able to run old versions. I can't recommend this strategy highly enough because I did have an incident with Steam in which it used a new version to completely trash my saves (setting everything back to a virgin state) and only backups saved my bacon.

An UPDATE on this that might have interest for others, or at least, stimulate some thought. I've almost completed a drive to now standardize Action Groups on all craft, including documenting the assignments in the craft description[*] so that a pilot has a chance to glance it over before launch. I've categorized all my craft by whether they are Tertiary, Secondary or Primary, meaning that a Tertiary craft has the potential to carry a Secondary (and Primary) and a Secondary has the potential to carry a Primary. My lifters fall into the Tertiary category. Airplanes and landers fall into the Secondary category. Rovers and mining equipment fall into Primary. I've reserved [9-0] for lifters. Planes and landers get [1-4]. Ground vehicles get [8-5]. The boundary between 4 and 5 is somewhat flexible with consideration for how craft are possibly gong to be mixed. The main thing, of course, is that a pilot does not want to need to activate some function on a craft for its normal operation and having all manner of riders respond in spurious ways in flight. I see now also that there are [of course] mods in this area and I think I'll look into it. The stock ten custom keys is not a lot. * along with maybe the KSC return Pe... Out.

Man, I read stuff like this and I think I"M NOT GOING CRAZY AFTER ALL!!! YAHOOOOO!! Both 1.2 and 1.3.1 knocked me for six and the result was a year's down time (I sulked in Minecraft for that long). I've gotten myself a lot more bullet-proof now including what will shortly become a plug-in to completely avoid mining. Yes, that's right. Thanks, @Whisky Tango Foxtrot, I need all the reassurance I can get! (Maybe the whole world's crazy except thee and me...? I dunno. I'm still a little worried about me...) [You know, T2 won't let me write your initials in the forum! It gets turned into "what". Sheesh. (Can I say sheesh...?)]

Brigadier Gen. Ronard Kerman: Congratulations, Lt. Kerman Rondos Kerman! You are now promoted to the rank of full Kerman in this Kerbal's Space Force. Well done, Kerman Kerman! General Halski Kerman: Heeelll, yeah! Tarnation, boyy! That was mighty purty flying. I thought you were gonna plum buy the farm there! What's it feel like, flying an A-partment building!?? Kerman Rondos Kerman: Well... aw, shucks. It was nothing, I guess... General Halski Kerman: You know you cain't leave that thang parked there, dontya? Why, in my day, we woulda just parked the vee-hickle right outta the way -- up there on the helo-pad, say...

Aquila Cruise fuels on the pad at Baikerbanur in preparation for a dawn launch into a 25 deg inclination orbit. Payload will be delivered to an amorphous island ENE of KSC. UPDATE: always launch when the destination sector of the orbit is in daylight. (How many times do I have to yell the Kerbals that!!) So I launched earlier than planned, in a hurry. It did not go well. (And too dark for the photos to show the magnificent Baikerbanur alpine scenery!) Cruise re-entered somewhere south of KSC and is now attempting to limp home...

KSP without World Stabilizer caused the rover under the parapet to jump and explode as it impacted the roof. That caused a sympathetic explosion from the rover I was driving which was still 100m from the scene. So putting it on the roof is WS but it's not a scenario KSP got right anyway. Looks like it is trivially easy to reproduce and that you will get a 100% rate. On the other hand, the priority to attempt to rectify this one is pretty low in my judgement. Thanks for your work!

Wilco.

Thumbs up! Seeing craft pogo-sticking gave me the heebie-jeebies. However, I've just seen this. I parked rover one under the veranda at the Astronaut Complex and went off to bring another one back. "Where's my rover?" On the roof. Well, there are two possibilities: this is KSP (doing what World Stablizer is supposed to stop) or World Stabilizer picked the wrong altitude for the rover due to the roof over it. Let me know if you want me to try to reproduce it without WS installed, but it should be easy to set up and try... Grab a stock Prospector Rover...

Thank you all who have downloaded Telemagic so far!! The planned "April Fool's Day" release date draws nigh and there's a good chance that KSP 1.4 will be released before that date. Be advised my intention is to attempt to produce a new release of Telemagic that is not only a true KSP plug-in but one that will attempt to work with both KSP 1.3.1 and the new 1.4. This will depend largely on how soon KSP 1.4 becomes available. Please stay tuned! Aquila Peregrine receives a hot wash and a new load of fuel moments after landing at KSC and pulling straight onto the fuel pad...

You can't be cool at that speed. First Law of Thermodynamics...

This is good stuff, especially as I spent the day constructing my old-style fuel dump ("Rolling H") for a video. I'd found some magic combination recently with auto-strutting to reduce the Kraken, but not this day... I actually suspect things like just bringing in one too many ships close by slows Physics down enough that its invisible fingers start to shake their grip. I've learned to turn SAS off but it only goes so far. Long story short, I followed some advice and built something that has no internal docking. All one piece and flagrant use of clipping but brilliant fuel capacity. It's the single heaviest item I've ever lifted even when its empty. Computer physics is great but it doesn't scale up well as a calculation. Not mentioned above: when the Kraken starts, hit warp factor 2 and back to freeze everything. It may buy you enough time to rectify/rescue the situation.

I had this problem with my MiG 15, which is why I advised Caps Lock when maneuvering above Mach 1. But a subsequent revision improved the situation and I think it takes an impact with the ground to break it now. I started to think along these lines: more AoA purchase as you move the CoL closer to the CoM but too much when you simply get the plane sideways and cause stall and too much when the drag from 2 breaks the airframe There's a kind of low-speed maneuverability, that is fun, that enables you to simply point elsewhere and fire the big guns -- but it doesn't mix well with a high-speed craft. There is certainly still a case for making the airframe as strong as possible (I use only genuine, Gizmo-brand glue!!). When I really started to stress test my Pterodactyl 6, I was badly surprised by the fact that a hard turn at slow speed, still loaded while on-fumes fuel-empty is enough to overpower the airframe -- and nothing ruins your day like your wings shedding, low to the ground.

I LOOOVE this kind of stuff. Fly low under the radar... Pop-up over the target. "Surprise, suuuurprise, SURPRISE!!" [As Gomer Kerman used to say] Join the parade under chutes. I've been busy in the Fake Mission News Studio down on the KSC backlot. [Remember that Duna mission we thought we were gonna lose...?] And have published the all-new Minotaur v2 Super Tanker [link].

Friends, I have just published the long-awaited v2 upgrade to the venerable Minotaur Super Tanker at KerbalX [link]. The Minotaur v2: it chops, it dices, it slices, it mulches, it mows the lawn, it walks the dog -- and it boosts 39 kilo-kallons of LF to LKO. [It does not play the piano.] And now with nosecones!! (Ja, Werner was right all along...) It has the grunt and an ample top deck for heavy-lifting of additional payload. It can go inter-planetary. You can even build a super-ugly orbital gas station unpainted in a dull, orange, anti-knock safety color (thoroughly tested by Kerbals) from the first two you send up [subject of next video]. It has a power train for Massive Ion Drive. Get yours now as there are only a virtual number remaining...

I feel for you because that's exactly why I put off rebuilding this beast for so long! I was daunted. But it has gone well. You might also open a parallel, Sandbox world for the express purpose of trying out machines from other sources... There is a 2.5m Remote Guidance Unit in the central core at the top of Level 2. But it's hard to get to. It's likely the root node. Be advised I will be publishing v2 in the next day or two. v2 has opened up more maintenance room between the stacks and it's easier to get in and out of. I'd be happy to build you a custom rig with, say, an Octo2, but I'm rather betting KSP may then start objecting about the other pieces. Do PM me if you want to go further with this. Or try the Sandbox idea.

They light at 30km on ascent. The Ox runs out during circularization, so they finish the job. They are used for de-orbiting. And for rendez-vous with a space station/orbital fuel dump, which is their usual destination. They can also be used for going interplanetary which is why it has heavy radiators for long injection burns. (I took one to Duna once, for example, delivering 30K kallons of LF.) I once took a part from one to separate two Aquila that had bulky loads that were intended to be resettled onto the payload deck of the first Aquila, but I decided to improvise. And v2 has a set of 14 Gigantor panels that can be deployed with an Omega ion module; this replaces my old, deployable solar "sails" and should be much simpler. I have always had a thing for multi-function modular components and try to design and use vehicles that can work together in multiple ways to achieve different ends. Like any body's obsession, I go to silly excesses with it...

I have had rather a pleasant evening, rebuilding my Minotaur Supertanker from scratch. I have looooong wanted to do this. Minotaur has been one of my only two lifters until now and its job is simply to haul fuel to orbit. V1 (which entered service in 2015) routinely arrives in LKO with 33,000 kallons of liquid fuel (165 tons). Well, I just got a satisfactory launch with my prototype V2 with all systems functioning, achieving a 103 x 103km orbit. Fuel onboard: LF, 38,407 40,551 kallons (192 203 tons) and 3,558 monoprop. Hotel26 will now likely open a bottle of champagne, as this has been hot work. I'll be posting a couple of videos shortly: a KT2 launch and interception of a KT1 already in a 100km orbit. two Minotaur Supertankers working in tandem to construct an orbital fuel dump comprised of 20 Jumbo-64 tanks by cannibalizing each other in a macabre, mating dance.

Good thing she took those swimming lessons while on suspension break, recently!

I have (reluctantly) taken a contract from a Mr... uh, wait... a Dr... E-vil... uh, Evil... to place 3 -- what look like -- 3 "death rays" into geosynchronous orbit stationed above downtown KSC... ... for a sum of... ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY... DOLLARS. (I know it's wrong. But I need the money and -- frankly -- the geosynchronous rendez-vous practice.)

On the take-off hover, there's a few seconds, ascending, to swivel the craft on course before lighting the aft-burners... VTOL on Duna turn fastest when stationary! No doubt, this is already your practice. But a tractor is already handy! Good save.

Pretty excited. The 1.2/1.3 upgrades knocked me for six. Everything now squared away with refurbished equipment, especially mining... And so I have finally rebooted my mainline Orbit world. Yay. Formation flying?? No. This is Operation Beach Head on the way to the Mun. Two Aquila(*) joined by a double orange tank/monoprop "barrel" taken from a Minotaur Supertanker... If this works on the Mun, then Duna and Laythe are next in line. Yay. * warm thanks to @swjr-swis for rebuilding Aquila!! Yay.