Cairol

I like those: Kredits Koins

Refining on the surface and bringing the LFO or whatever to orbit is much more efficient fuel-wise than transporting the raw ore to orbit. So that's what I do.

I exchanged two less cool long-range satellites around kerbin with three more cool satellites. But man, this was finicky. Those sats have 6 large dish antennas and a mass of nearly 5t each. And I moved as much mass at the front to get a stable flight during acceleration. But even the 4.8 thrust ion engine of NearFuture propulsion made the satellite freaking out badly during the circularization burn. I had to do it very gently in a 12 minute burn for each sat. BTW: It's really bad if you position and fine-tune your satellite and then activate the dishes with an action group that will toggle ALL antennas on the satellite. deactivating the already active Communotron 32 in the proccess.... This little red calculator icon in the upper left corner basicly says: "You failed!"

I'd like so much to re-install FAR. But the still ocurring overheating bug thingie is a killer for me. It's so annoying that I can't use a really great mod just because the stock game has this weird behavior and interacts strangely with FAR in this regard. But having my space stations and other things spontaneously explode due to overheating is just frustrating.

I tested some expetimental micro-SSTO designs. My first version worked good. But I had only enough fuel to do a de-orbit burn. After that, I had to do the re-entry and "landing" without fuel and without juice. Skin temperature of the MK1 cockpit was at 1,900/2000 degress during re-entry with the nose at 10 degrees. But I could not keep my nose up until only a few hundred meters above the ground. Impact speed was about 70 m/s and luckily I hit with the front wheel and could use literally all other parts to slow me down. I somehow managed to keep the cockpit intact. Jeb was very grateful because of it. But he's already familiar with my professional and totally intended lithobreaking landings. XD I call that a success...

What I did for Kerbin: 4x aequatorial keosynchronous satellites with Com32 antenna and 4x DTS-M1 antennas each to cover a big part of Kerbin SOI and reach Mun and Minmus. The DTS antennas on each sat are pointed at active vessel, KSC, Mun and Minmus. 3x large polar satellites in higher orbit with multiple dishes for reaching all planets with long range connections. (I did the full equipment to not have to have dozens of different sats in obit) Other planets have similar setups. Only difference is, that those other planets do only have a single medium/long range antenna on each polar orbit satellite to connect to the Kerbin network and an omni antenna to connect to the aequatorial satellites and get full coverage. Sometimes I omit the DTS-M1s for the aequatorial sats if the moon(s) are close enough. Like for Duna and Ike. Usually 3 satellites are enough for aequatorial coverage. Especially when not setup in synchronous orbit and not too high of an orbit. You should always try to cover the whole SOI of a planet with omni antennas. For transfers, the "Actrive vessel" option of the sats should be ok, if the ships dish is powerful enough and pointed at KSC. One of the polar satellites will pick up the connection as long as not obstructed by another celestial body. (which should be rare with long-range satellites in high polar orbits) As for fine-tuning: Either use the RCS precision mode or use a tiny engine or ion engine (maybe with thrust limited to 5% or so) to get super-precise placement. Only problem with this: The farther you go outside of Kerbin SOI, the more the orbital period will jitter. If you take readouts from KER for example, if you are at Duna or farther away than that, you can't tune it as precise, because the numbers begin to fluctuate badly while your satellite is not accelerating nor turning at all. Because of that, I personally do not hesitate to synchronize the orbital period of my sats by save-file editing my satellites...

I don't know if I understand you correctly. In KSP you can design your rocket in a way so each stage has a single purpose. A single burn. Example: Stage 0: SRBs for the first couple km and then -> dropped Stage 1: LFO Motor to lift the rocket to designated AP and then -> dropped Stage 2: Coast to circularization burn and burn at AP till curcularized, then -> dropped Stage 3: Transfer Stage for interplanetary missions or return stage for orbital operations around Kerbin To get a perfectly circular orbit in one go, you need as much impulse as possible at AP. Technically, you will never be 100% circular in one burn because of this. And for real world rockets: I'm pretty sure only the transfer stage of a rocket is ignited more than once. If anything. Normally it's only the return stage for manned missions. Even the space shuttles build-in main engines (SSME) are only used for the ascent as far as I know. After that, they use the smaller OMS engines which are capable to do multible burns for circularization and re-entry as well as RCS thrusters for small maneuvers.

Guess a satellite is also a "craft"? If yes, then yes. ^^ My sats are named like this: [Purpose] Sat [body] [Range] [Version] Example: COM Sat Kerbin LR Mk1 which means, a communications satellite in Kerbin orbit with long range equipment version 1. My polar satellites are always at least one range class above the aequatorial ones. So I don't need a distinction in the name here. The "Purpose": - COM = Communication - SCAN = Survey scanner The "Range": - SSR = Super Short Range (Omni antenna only up to 5k km) - SR = Short Range (Omni + Dishes <= 90k km) - MR = Medium Range (Dishes <= 60M km) - LR = Long Range (Dishes <= 400M km)

Both cockpits are intact. I call that a success.

I thing mods like KER make the game playable in the first place. Without such a tool, it's just guessing what your rocket will be capable of. Or it will mean you have to do all the math by yourself. Which is not what I understand this game should be. (at least for me) Tools that actually automate stuff you've done 1000 times manually is also something I can accept, because it just removes something tedious whenever I don't feel like doing it the old fashioned way the 1001st time. My personal border is, when I use Mods/cheats that take a key factor out of the game. Like HyperEdit for actual Missions (not just experiments) or unlimited fuel, disabling heat effects ect. So it's not so much about whether or not I'm "cheating", but about if it adds or takes away something from the game I enjoy.

I've to hear and like that guy. Normally you know it in the first couple of seconds if you want to watch and hear someone. A good mic is also important and a good balance between in-game sound and voice volume. For me it's important that I can learn something from a streamer. I can also enjoy this guy here for some time, because he is funny and doesn't take himself too serious. But if a streamer is regularely failing more than I am, he loses my interrest quickly.

Unkerbaled and kerbaled to Duna orbit once. Just to test the transfer stage. No landing yet.

Some good tips here. Guess I'll also give those space planes another try. My ratio of successful SPs/SSTOs to successful rocket designs is like 1:50. And I don't even speak about efficiency.

I played Space Engineers before I knew about KSP. Then I sometimes heared references to KSP in the Space Engineers forums, blaming SE to not have a realistic center of mass model "like Kerbal Space Program has". So you would have to account for symmetric/balanced thuster placement. There were also other corss-references to KSP in that forum every now and then. So eventually I got curious and watched some Youtube videos about KSP and fell in love with it. And here I am.

I have 1,5 GB VRAM (nVidia 580 GTX) and I cannot run VisualEnhancements with clouds or city lights. Even the low res version does not work The game crashes due to insufficient VRAM. KIS and KAS are cool. FAR also, if just the exaggeration of the stock overheating bug would not be... I also like the "NearFuture" mod packs, RemoteTech and the Kerbal Aerospace Expansion (KAX). And last but not least the "stock bugfix modules".

Which "indicator" is meant in the poll?

I use them always because I like the realism factor, and it also makes the re-entry more forgiving overall. Difficulty is, to not overload them thermally.

Looked for that yesterday with no luck. Thanks for the info. *thumbsup*

So if the planets surface disappears, it's not a bad thing to begin with? XD We KSP players are surely used to a lot. I've never tried it myself, but I would also suggest to control the claw vehicle. Just to avoid the Kraken... Personally, I use KAS for transferring fuel. Only disadvantage of that solution over the fuel-truck-with-claw thing is: You need to land more precisely, because the connection tubes have limited range. A truck can drive a couple of hundred meters if necessary.

I first build the deploy/return vehicle stage if I have orbital payload to deliver. Then I build the payload on top, then I balance the vessel (RCS...), then I build the interplanetary transfer stage followed by the lifter stage. SRBs last if needed. (I usually use them whether or not I do need them, just because I love 'em ) If it's a non-mobile lander at the top, I start with the lander and work my way down. For one-way rovers, I follow the first mentioned schema. For spaceplanes (which I seldomly do), I usually start with the cockpit and work my way back on the main body. Then I start the outside stacks/wings basicly from front to back for the rough outline and then it's zigzag until it actually flies decently stable without SAS usage.

New findings: The wiggling increases when being away from Kerbin. At Mun or Minmus for example, it wiggles considerably, while in LKO it's perfectly stable with stock SAS. So it seems it has to do with math errors the farther away from the mathematical center a craft is. Feels similar like my "fluctuating orbital period" discovery at bodies outside Kerbin SOI. Smart A.S.S. does a better job, but it also can't overcome the games inaccuricies in position/orientation calculation. So I guess I have to live with it for ligther crafts. Heavier crafts are inert enough to not show this behavior. Anyway. Thanks for your input, guys.

I only know MechJebs stability assist as part of the ascent guidance module and the one for rovers. Is there another one that can be activated instead of SAS during manual space flight? None of my satellites has MJ installed and I'd like to avoid this anyway. I use MJ sometimes for automatic ascents or for precision landings.

I brought him back today. He was orbiting Mun for years together with a female enigneer because of a failed rescue mission. But there were still only two Kerbals in the pod. So I guess they were only playing cards, counting the stars and doing other professional stuff. Nothing serious.

I installed the Near Future mods and build a nuclear powered satellite and brought it to LKO for testing a few days ago. Today, after 110 kerbal days or so, I re-visited it and wanted to transfer some depleted uranium to the adjacent waste container. Just to get the message that this action is only available if a level 3 engineer is in the craft. And transferring enriched uranium from the storage drum to the fission reactor also needs an engineer lvl 1. So the NF fission reactors are basicly useless for a satellite. What a shame.

This is included in "Stock Bugfix Module". It's in the "StockPlus" set of the mod. It also has nice features like "Safe/Risky/Unsafe indicators for parachute staging icons and other things. I love it. Looks like a StarWars speeder so low above the ground. But even cooler. Meercats should duck their head! XD