Warzouz

OK Thanks

Thx. I got it wrong. the red arrow wasn't a displacement force, but the the axis of the torque. It's logical since the airbrakes and fins are on the back of the plane. It's not a problem of lateral dysymmerty but vertical one, which is logical on a plane... Dumb question...

I recently installed RCS Build Aid and discover a phantom torque on my plane. I understand a bit more why my plane was slightly turning south Total torque :2kN If I remove the fins: torque = 0.56kN If I remove whole wings assembly: Torque = 0 Wings are attached with symmetry, so I shouldn't get any torque. On runway, KER says I've a 0.1° offset angle. Do you know what I did wrong ?

It is. If I remove the mod (3 folders) the Whiplash comeback to normal. It's only visual and I didn't noticed any other part which behave the same. If I replace the engine with a fresh new whiplash, it's the same (around 80%) and it's not touching the attaching part.

I have 2 issues : - One is visual : The Wiplash engine seems to be resized to 80% in all directions. Is this intentional ? - I have to microfreeze which vanish when I remove the mod. How can I track them ?

4700m/s, very nice ! My space station has only 4.3km/s (including the lander fuel) - but I've better crew accommodations and exploration/Science efficiency. I need a interplanetary stage to go on far bodies though. True for Moho. It's a pain. I recently send a other space station there, it was massive. I had to add a new SSTO launch stage to my Cygnus Rocket family...

Science game is a nice way for new players to discover the game bit by bit and have simple objective. When I started playing KSP (beta 0.9), I tried the Career mode, but found it a bit overwhelming. I switched back to science and had a lot of fun. As 1.0, I restarted a Career game. It's enjoyable, same as science, but you have to focus on fund efficient rockets and no just part or mass efficient rockets. I didn't play the game the same way and developed some monolithic recoverable stages instead of complex aspargus-style staged rockets. In late game, all come to sandbox anyway. But that's part of the game. If career was too directive we wouldn't be happy because KSC is a game of "go were you want, explore what you want". I like how the game is more open in late game. Sure there is room for improvement (XP system, contracts, more data, integrated curiosities...), but overall, career is what I expected.

Nice plane. How much dV do you have in "interplanetary mode" ?

Or sometime you stupidly forget to remove the "prograde" option and don't understand why you plane continues to dive to the ground. As I did more than once...

Thanks, I'll put them back on the cones.

I had overheat on this buddy and I added panel. This lander is also the engine block of a space station it has to do much longer burns than simply landing on a body. Obviously, heat comes from engines. engines are connected to nose cons attached to a central ore tank (which is empty in "space station configuration"). Fuel comes from the 8 lateral tanks, each one is connected to an engine with a fuelduct. Should I put the panels on the nose cones or leave them on the lateral tanks ?

I could try to stick outside parts I put on the central axis. For example, I could try to balance the drill with the landing can by pluging it under a lateral tank. Obviously, I 'll have to check with KER... That would also fix my weak node problem... I'll look into RCS build aid. Thx

You can unlock the whole tech tree without researching, only collecting science from Mun, Minmus and Kerbin (mostly KSC). I think it took me 3 month to unlock the tech tree and built everything. If you want some space station, I'm working on some packaged stuff here (space station, landers, refueler, return vehicle) http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/132464 It's a bit draft for now, I'm working on simplifying it.

On a rocket, you should have your CoM always on the middle of the rocket. Many engines and reactions wheels can compensate for that, but only if SAS is on. Even a small unbalance can wreck ascent and ascending with SAS on is harder than without. So I feel the urge of balancing everything. That mean redudancy for all non physicless parts not on the central axis and for physicless parts not attached to a central axis part. So I get a lot of double features (2 mystery goo, 2 antennas, 2 drills, 2 solar panels, 2 RTG, 2 fuel cels, 2 docking rings, 2 radial RCS tanks...) In the end, that leads to a waiste of fuel for a dead payload mass. How do you manage that ? For example, is it possible to create a ship with only ONE drill ?

OK, I found it in the config file on the Wiki. -> 5 E/s

How much energy /s the MPL consumes while researching ?

I recommend using a space station as base of operation to explore Mun and Minmus, so you don't have to get back too often. In that configuration, your lander can do multiple "hops" and strip Mun or Minmus very fast. Meanwhile have your space station research the experiments you got. Then get home with a return vehicle. Leave your landers there. If you get new expermiments, just send a return vehicle and a new lander (no need to send a space station again. You can even transform your old lander into a return vehicle by adding parachutes on a mini docking module you plug on the lander.

Salamander Exploration Space Station (pictures are clickable - except this one...) The Salamander Exploration Space Station (SESS) is a versatile design and specification to create a long term base of operations for planetary exploration and quick contract resolution. It's designed to be efficient in collecting science. The SESS is designed to fulfill various goals: Host kerbals and generate science Base of operations for one or multiple science landers Be able to quickly do contracts (get science from space, from ground, plant flag, collect and deliver ore up to 3000 and rescue Kerbals) Host return vehicles for Kerbals to get home Refuel landers, fuel return vehicles Get ore from planetary bodies. Be standard for most bodies Migrate to another body to do more exploration. In few words: put a station there, explore from there, refuel it with its miner, research science, leave it there, and go back home with a return ship. Send new crew with next return ship. SESS Package Download package: Salamander Exploration Space Station (420KB) This file contains: 4 prebuilt space stations (25 to 35 tons) 2 miners (40 tons) 3 landers (around 7 tons) 2 survey satellites (radially pluggable) 6 interplanetary stages to get to target. 8 fully built rockets to go anywhere (ships, not sub-assemblies). Warning: I recommend you use "Kerbal Joints Reinforcement" mod from Ferram4. You can still launch in parts and assemble in space or try the noodle rodeo. Moho station firing at LKO / Moho station in orbit (with Plume mod). This one was too heavy: the lander was part of a separate mission, tugged by the return vehicle Design The SESS is a refueling station capable of creating its various fuels from ore which is mined by a dedicated drilling heavy lander. This miner is also the station engine block which is used for interplanetary flight. The whole station objective is to refuel science landers and return vehicles to harvest science and manage crew rotations. It can host various ships and probes if necessary. The landers have a dV around 3000m/s; they can do multiple hops on most bodies and rescue Kerbals, even on retrograde orbits. Tylo, Laythe and Eve need dedicated landers: default ones can only land. The Miner is also capable of landing on most bodies except Eve, Duna Tylo and Laythe which have specific refuelling strategies (check the table below). It can drill 3000 ore and has a 1300m/s range. One Miner trip can refill at least 43% of an orange tank (in addition to its own full refill) The station also have 2 small 1600m/s survey probes to send on polar orbits before arriving on target. Of course, the station has crew quarters (usually 10 kerbals including lander and return ship), research lab and ISRU to refine ore gathered by the Miner. Every ship has emergency batteries: all integrated batteries (probes core, landing can) are locked to allow emergency action on the station in case of power shortage. Dancing with Tylo / Even Highlands can have flat areas... Usage Prebuilt station has no oxidizer, nor RCS. All the station's fuel reserves are to be used during interplanetary flight, including fuel from docked ships. Important: the only fuel you don't want to use is the one needed to land the miner and get back to the station. Check next table. Miner specifications: gives needed fuel for operation, dV range, and refuel efficiency. Once in orbit around target body, land the miner first, get ore and come back to the station. Always refill the Miner first with only the needed fuel to go mining again. Then fill RCS, and LF+Ox. If ships are docked, use their fuel tank to balance gravity centre of your assembly, so you can even move the station if needed. After refuelling a lander, you can explore the body at last using the science landers. Mining and exploring operations can be done at the same time. I recommend sending 4 to 6 kerbals on the first mission. Then you can leave 2 and bring the others back to Kerbin. Send other return ships for crew rotations. Miner landing on Eeloo / Miner landed on Bop on a 27° slope. Variants There are 2 main branches of SESS. Inward branch: solar powered, they are designed to target Moho to Duna bodies. Outward branch: RTG and fuel cells (for lander) powered, they are designed to target Dres to Eeloo bodies. Stations, miners, probes, landers are designed into those 2 branches. Station design is simple: just add anything you want. The station has 2 configurations: Small tank: half an orange tank. It can refuel landers 4 times at least and has 4 regular docking rings. Large tank: full orange tank. It can refuel landers 8 times at least and has 8 regular docking rings. The 4 Salamander Exploration Space Station design and equipment. Station mission arriving at Eeloo with return vehicle and lander / Eeloo station in orbit (PS : this return vehicle was dreadful, it won't be part of the pack Target bodies Going to Eve, Kerbin's moons, or Duna doesn't require any interplanetary stage. For Eve and Duna, I recommend targeting Gilly and Ike first to do a mid-trip refuel there. Beware that TWR is very low (around 0.3) but encounters are easy for those bodies. If you're not easy with low TWR at LKO, you can deplete station fuel and add an interplanetary stage. Other targets require an interplanetary transfer stage to help the station going there. Again, for Laythe, Vall and Tylo, I recommend targeting Pol first to do a mid-trip refuel there. All dV of the next table take full account of plane change. You can surely get to the targeted body with much less fuel or efficient stage. Don't hesitate to replace it with a better design. To go to LKO, I recommend using a Cygnus Recoverable SSTO Rockets, but any 3400 m/s will do. Warning: I recommend you use "Kerbal Joints Reinforcement" mod from Ferram4. You can still launch in parts and assemble in space or try the noodle rodeo. Smaller stations have lesser range; they tend to need a bigger interplanetary stage. Previous table shows it's possible to depart with 3000 ore in the Miner. This removes interplanetary stage for many targets, but the TWR is reduced again and departure to tight transfer windows can be hard. I recommend not to. SESS configurations and interplanetary transfer stages. Specifics An Eve stations is required to be on a 2000km in Gilly's plane. That way you can refuel it from Gilly A Duna station can be set on any orbit but need to be refueled from Ike Tylo and Laythe stations haven't been tested but need to be refuelled from Pol. Jool station passing by Tylo / Station orbiting Vall Balancing fuel from docked ship allow to move the station without torque offset. Landers All lander are fitted with: Power production, antenna and probe core to do science and recover kerbals. Full science equipment (one material bay, 2 mystery goo, single or multiple for smaller ones, surface ore scanner) Large landing base to reduce flipping. Lights (dock and land) Vacuum Inward Lander: a 6.7T lander capable of visiting regular vacuum bodies (except Tylo). Its 3100m/s of dV will allow it to do multiple hops before returning to the station. This lander is capable of landing on Tylo but won't be able to get back. Vacuum Outward lander: same but with fuel cells. Aero lander: a 7.3T lander capable of landing on Duna. Deploy chutes around 650m/s. You can do hops, if you are near biome borders. You can land on Laythe and Eve but you won't be able to reach orbit again. Vaccum lander on Dres / Aero lander on Duna Vacuum lander safely landed on Eve (PS.: no airbrakes, no drogue, no chutes… only Ker-balls:D) Additional design info The energy section is at the top of the station, far from docking rings for a reason. If you use solar panels, those are very fragile, you don't want to mess a docking procedure around solar panels. As docking rings are on the other side of the station, your panels are safe. The RTG version has a central docking ring. It's possible to attach ships at launch. This means you can do a single mission for the space station on this configuration. That's not recommended though as the resulting ship may wobble a lot during Kerbin ascent. It can be assembled in LKO, though. This additional dock is handy when an uneven station has to be moved to another location. Just use this ring to even ships, in combination with fuel balancing. Actions groups Toggle solar panels (station and miner) and Fuel cells (lander) Toggle ladders Activate engines (miner, lander) Shutdown engines (miner, lander) Toggle chutes (Duna lander) Toggle drill (miner) Start drilling (miner) (unused) (unused) Toggle coms dish (cosmetic) Ports naming: A is on the side of the crew and lab door. AB is between port A and B. Recommended docking operations Put the station on the "Normal" orientation. It's easier to find docking rings. Favour opposite docking ring, if you want to move the station. Shut-down main engines before docking Toggle off lights before docking If any, retract miner's solar panels to avoid destroying them: they are very close to other docking rings. If any, shutdown lander's fuel-cells before docking. Lander on Gilly coming from high orbit Eve station One lander can rescue another one without sending a ship from Kerbin Feedback appreciated.

Dogue can be open at 600, maybe 700m/s Please note that this is true on Kerbin. On Duna, you can open regular chute at 700m/s, maybe more, so you don't need Drogue. On Eve, you have to wait to lower speed. On Laythe, I've not tested, but you could open them at a slightly higher speed. - - - Updated - - - From Minmus, just dive to 30km. Use Airbrakes and drogues if your ship is big. When returning from any mission (with exceptions). I always dive to 30km, even from hyperbolic trajectory. If your speed is too high, you'll blow before around 45km. My usual return vehicle has airbrakes, no drogue but regular chutes. It's a small return vehicle for 2 kerblas. It's always an easy landing. From intra kerbin SOI, I don't even use heat shield From interplanetary, I use a small one (I don't event know if it's usefull) My return vehicle is designed for a 4500m/s speed. At more than 5000m/s (Moho returns) it blows (airbrakes first - open or closes -, the rest blows later). To handle that, I burn retrograde to slowdown before entering atmo. I could try to design a specific return vechicle, but I usually ahve plenty of fuel left (the plane change safety margin) If you don't use return vehicles but use your mission main vehicle, burn ALL your fuel and RCS in high atmo. That helps you slow down for 2 reasons. - Your weight reduces - You reduce your speed by thrusting retrograde IMO, Lithobraking have 2 meaning - Crashing into ground - Hiting the ground hard, but surviving the crash (genealy from low speed = 30 to 50m/s, even higher with a specifically designed ship),

True, when you return from a mission, the "efficiency" of the deoribit is mostly meaning-less. You can reenter atmo at a very low dV from nearly anywhere. Any fuel you don't burn on reentry will increase you weight and make you arrive faster on the ground. Don't hesitate to burn ALL your fuel (even monoprop) in atmo. When I return from a mission, I usally go straight to the atmo. Moho and Eeloo are exceptions because of the periaps speed : you could vaporize in atmo. So I slow down to around 4000m/s and I'm safe.

I have a permanent space station around Moho (with a 60 tons refueler/lander section powered by LVN). I had no issues with temp. Sometimes temp gauges appeared, but they always stay in the green.

One of my ship disappeared once. I opened a old save file, copies the vessel part and copied it in the actual save file. The ship was back and never went off again. No need to revert to a old file, just edit the current one. Don't forget backup though.

Canyon treking ?

I think it depends on your game mode a lot. I first played beta 0.9 in science mode. I didn't had to account for cash, so I didn't do SSTO at all. I preferred to build some complex asparagus staging which were quite fun to tweak. But as 1.0.x, I restarted as Carrier. In mid game, your cash is quite low and your tech is high enough to build SSTO planes or rocket stages to LKO. SSTO plane are fun to fly. I have one which I use to truck crew from my Kerbin space station. But that's more RP than really efficient. Sending multiple return pods to the station is much quicker and easy. I use SSTO rockets a LOT. Once you have a neat design, they are highly scalable (there is no real limitation), easy to fly (due to no staging) and very cheap (once you get how to land less than 50km from KSC). I'm now in late carrier game. I've so much cash, I'm nearly playing sandbox. SSTO aren't as usefull, but they are fast to build. I just create my ship and clip a pre-designed LKO stage on it, then launch. I don't even have to test the stage (but I test my ship staging on the pad without launch stage) That's my SSTO stages program : http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/123195 . I even have a 400T and 600T. Both were variations of the 200 and 300T I designed in less than 10 minutes.

With my general lander, I did it with the RCS and time...