HvP

Hello, Loren. It's hard to say for sure without pictures of your craft. If you can take a screenshot with the F1 key and upload the picture to a file sharing site like Imgur.com you can paste the link to that picture into a post here in this thread. Also, how did it flip? Did it go forwards and turn upside down? Were you trying to turn and it flipped sideways? Backwards? Did it begin to dive under the water and then partially submerge? How fast were you going? My guess is that having engines mounted up high could be causing your problem. Consider that friction with the water will cause a lot of drag down low, and the force of your engine's thrust will be only pushing on the top half of your craft. This means that the bottom half of your craft is being pushed backwards by the water and the top half is being pushed forwards by the engines causing it to flip. To counteract this effect you would need a longer ship with the engines in line vertically with the center of mass. Adding parts like nose cones on the front of the craft would help reduce drag when moving through the water.

Welcome to the forums, and that's a cool first station.

Happy to have you here. Have fun and let us know how you're getting on.

I prefer imgur.com myself. But maybe autocorrect is being a little childish today LOL.

You might try adjusting the traction control setting. If KSP's traction control works anything like the real thing then it should send less power to the wheels when they start to slip. Turning the traction control slider down may allow the wheels get more power at the expense of spinning out on slopes. To prevent slipping in the first place you can click on that Friction Control button and turn the friction up on your wheels.

@jonpfl I think you can get rid of those small fins near the top part of your rocket. They are going to catch the wind acting like a sail if you turn too hard and drag the front of your rocket around. Maybe move the small fins to where the larger ones are near the Swivel engine, and move the larger fins to your bottom stage. There's also added drag when you connect stacks of different diameter parts without a size adapter. It will be smoother if you add a Rockomax Brand Adapter to narrow the gap between the size 2 parts at the bottom and your size 1 parts above it. Just remember to use the decoupler that fits the smaller size at the top of the adapter so it will separate from your Swivel engine. Also, I'd guess that the mainsail engine on your bottom stage is WAY too overpowered for such a small rocket. When you ram into the air going extremely fast in the lower atmosphere it increases the drag at the front of your rocket even more than normal. If you want to keep the larger diameter on bottom then a Skipper would probably work just as well and be more efficient. And don't forget solar panels and an antenna if you're going to the Mun. (I'm going to suggest this thread is moved to the Game Questions forum, you'll get more help there.)

Hello, it's pretty hard to figure out if your situation is unusual without a little more detail about your craft, but the ocean physics were altered around version 1.0.5 to make splashdowns less dangerous. Buoyancy was changed as well as how much resistance the water has at different speeds. It is now possible to create sea planes and submarines that don't break apart at low speeds. Even with the changes it is usually pretty hard to make a craft sink under the water. Most parts are more buoyant than the water and cause ships to float unless you are trying to weigh it down with heavy parts. Full ore tanks, I-beams and structural panels along with most engines seem to have the highest density and will sink if not counterbalanced by enough lighter parts.

I don't believe there is any stock method of switching between different SAS modes from the IVA view alone. There also doesn't appear to be a keyboard shortcut for doing so, although admittedly the keyboard layout is starting to get a bit crowded so I can understand why such a feature isn't a priority. If I remember correctly, the MechJeb mod allows the possibility to assign action groups for its version of hold prograde, hold retrograde, hold normal, etc... but it's MechJeb's controls that are being assigned, not the stock SAS module. Like you said, bringing up the map seems to be the best way to set those functions right now. It would be nice to have more clickable buttons in IVA, but of course mods like RasterPropMonitor and VesselView attempt to fill the gaps.

Compactness. The node in the center of the toroidal tank is deeper and allows small engines like the spark and ant to nest up in there with less extension on the underside. Also, multiple round 8 tanks overlap in stacks that take up less vertical space than normal tanks. This makes small satellites and probes fit into smaller fairings and bays.

What is happening when you try? I notice that your engines are placed rather low down. See how your center of thrust marker (the purple ball) is beneath the line of your center of mass (the yellow ball)? Your engines are pushing on the underside of your plane harder than the top side of your plane. Usually this means that it will constantly tend to pitch upwards, pivoting around the center of mass. You might try raising the engines up some so that they are in line with the center of mass. More immediately, if you can't lift off of the runway at all I'd say that it's because your rear wheels are too far back. You need to be able to lean back to bring your nose up when you are trying to lift off. The force allowing you to pitch upwards in this case would come from the air pushing down on your horizontal tail fin causing the plane to rock backwards with the rear wheels as your pivot point. But there's too much weight in front of the rear wheel and not enough leverage behind them so you can't pivot on them. Move the rear wheels forward more -- just about in line with the engine nozzles should work. Too far forward though and you'll hit your tail on the runway when you take off.

Certainly a possibility. I agree that whatever is leading to this circumstance in the OP's case isn't likely to be intentional use of the trim. The situation makes that unlikely and I was just surprised that it could be replicated in stock. I had never considered this before and it can bite hard if unprepared for it. @Cunjo Carl You're a braver man than I am!

It does though. Fully stock test. You can also see that the ship is rotating so fast in this still frame that it is coming apart. I applied positive pitch with ALT-S, EVAd the pilot and switched back to the test craft to take this screencap. Notice the pitch indicator. Edit to add: I went ahead and added the issue to the bug tracker just in case it is not intended behavior. http://bugs.kerbalspaceprogram.com/issues/15432

I didn't notice that pitch indicator the first time, but now I've tried to simulate your circumstances and I can replicate the behavior WITH the stuck pitch indicator, under no control, with SAS off, after EVAing the pilot. The situation only presented itself if I had trim applied (ALT+S for example) with SAS off before sending the pilot on EVA. And since the craft was out of commnet range all control at that point was lost, but the gauge still showed pitch being applied even though control was lost. I can confirm that even a slight amount of trim input will continue to be applied even when the craft should be receiving no control input and is unsolvable in its current state. I see no way to realistically regain control of the craft once this happens. I'm not sure if it would be considered a bug or not however because I can imagine a similar scenario occurring if I were to jump out of a craft with the engine firing -- it would just fly away from me. It takes control to turn the engine off again just as I suppose it would require control to turn the trim control back to zero. Either way, we would be leaving the craft in a runaway state. If you feel this behavior is unrealistic or unintended then I'd recommend you add it to the bug tracker: http://bugs.kerbalspaceprogram.com/projects/ksp/issues?set_filter=1&tracker_id=1 See my last post. I have been able to replicate one possible set of circumstances leading to this problem in stock 1.3.

LOL, being short and stumpy would have that effect I guess. You're basically trying to fly a blunt bullet, but it works I'll give you that. And I like the indicator lights tied to the action groups. That's a helpful trick I just might have to copy for its sheer elegant utility.

I know that the drifting along the ground bug was a big problem when 1.0 came out, but I thought it had been minimized in more recent updates, although not completely eliminated. The references I've seen implicating KAS probably was a result of wide hooked-together structures amplifying the underlying physics problem you are running into. Thinking about it more, I've noticed that switching focus between widely separated ships when both are within physics range exacerbates the problem -- they don't have to be connected after all. Having BD Armory installed, for example, extends the physics range by about 10 times normal and I was getting bad discontinuities with my surface bases when craft would come into that 20km range or when I switched between them. I had to uninstall it to make my life easier. It's possible that phantom forces could be at work, of course. Clipping service bays, cargo bays, air brakes and landing legs against other craft seem to be the biggest offenders creating phantom forces in my experience.

As swjr-swis said, most engines only attach to the ends of parts not the sides of parts. The advantage of using the small fuel tanks on the side is that you can put the engines on the back of them and the air intakes on the front.

@gregv you're certainly welcome, and I'm glad I could help. Have fun!

Ok, I think I see what is happening. When you increase time warp (that kind that doesn't use ALT) it will cut your throttle off because the engines can't burn during regular time warp. This is normal behavior for time warp in space. Your engines aren't being deactivated, you just don't have your foot on the gas pedal anymore, if you get my meaning. Look at the curved indicator on the left side of the NavBall. The little pointer that goes up and down the bar shows you how much throttle you are giving your engines. It goes all the way down when you enter time warp, but is still throttled down when you tried toggling the engines in the right-click menu. You don't have to use that activate/deactivate engine button unless you need to stop or start the engines from receiving throttle commands. Can I assume you have been allowing the engines to burn after staging them and then you turn them off by right-clicking and pressing the deactivate button? There is a much easier way to control the engines. If you still have the default key assignments then you can press Z to go back to full throttle, or Left-Shift to gradually increase throttle in small steps. The X key will cut the engines off or the Left-Control will gradually reduce throttle. So basically, all you need to do to go back to full throttle when coming out of time warp is to press the Z button, then press X when you want to stop burning. The Z and X keys are basically acting like your your gas pedal and brake. Z to accelerate, X to stop accelerating (X won't slow you down, but you will coast instead of accelerating further.) Right-clicking the engine to press the deactivate/activate button is like turning the ignition key off and on. You may find this list of key bindings helpful. http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Key_bindings I would also suggest running through the games tutorials that are accessible from the main menu screen. Although, maybe I'm mistaken and if this isn't your problem please let me know.

Hello @gregv and welcome. It sounds like you are seeing the difference between the two types of warp that the game uses. When you are in the atmosphere under 70km the game will still compute all of the ship's physics up to 4x warp. This is called "physics warp." However, once you go above the atmosphere the default warp will just speed up time but you won't be able to control the ship until you cancel time warp. During this version of time warp while in space the game just computes the orbits of the ship but not the engine burns or most other physics. If you want to speed up time but still fire the engines then you can go into "physics warp" by holding down the ALT key and pressing the period, also called the full stop, on the same key with the greater than symbol >. You should still be able to control physics warp up to 4x speed by holding the ALT key with the period. The comma , will decrease the warp or you can press forward slash / to cancel warp. This works for Windows computers. If you are using a Mac then you hold the Option key instead of Alt. On Linux it is the Right-Shift key instead. I hope this helps, but if you still have questions please ask. And have fun!

I think it's brilliant! I would never have thought to use the MK2 cockpits for the rear stabilizers. Even though it's a little before my time I have vague memories of seeing clips of this show, or at least of the ship. In fact, a while back I was looking around for inspiration from classic sci-fi ships that I don't think anyone has done yet in KSP and was reminded of the Fireball XL5. I couldn't get a handle on how to get started with it, so ultimately I decided to do the Palomino from Disney's The Black Hole instead. Are you planning on doing any of the Thunderbird's ships? There's some nice variety that would also make some very cool looking recreations I think.

Wheels just straight up don't work on Gilly. You can do all of your hauling using RCS thrusters with no problem. Heck I wouldn't even call it landing on Gilly; more like a low speed rendezvous with the surface. Everyone has their own creative solutions for mining on Gilly but the few times I've mined there I simply used the entire lander as one whole lander/miner/tanker combo in one ship to avoid the problems you mention. I think the jumping you are experiencing has more to do with the KAS pipes than the moon. The further separated different parts of the structure are from each other the more likely it is that there will be floating point errors in their location measurements when they all load in. KAS just makes it easier to make wide expansive structures that stretch out over uneven ground.

If you look down in the bottom left side of the VAB layout you'll see a yellow hexagon with a dot in the middle (it's under the button for your center-of-lift marker that looks like a small yellow wing). Push the hexagon button and it will turn off angle snap so you should be able to finely adjust your part placement and rotation. Also I understand that LB and RB move the parts in fine control mode (you may have to have the rotate gizmo selected to make use of this.) I'm sorry you're getting frustrated with the game, but remember it is rocket science so try not to feel bad. There is a learning curve and it really does take some practice. No one will judge you if you feel like taking a break from it for a bit though. Maybe watch some Youtube vids about KSP. I hear that Scott Manley's channel is a good one to start with (but be careful of old tutorials, because the game's mechanics have changed over the years.)

As bewing said, you'll need to already have the klaw unlocked, also known as the Advanced Grabbing Unit, which will allow you to grab the asteroid as if you are docking with it. Depending on the asteroid's size you will probably need to pack a lot more fuel than you're used to in order to change its orbit significantly. The good news is that it's almost in Kerbin orbit already, so it won't take too much to push it into a captured orbit and then you can come back to it later with a bigger ship and move it into a more equatorial orbit and then bring the mining equipment if that's what you want. I'd say your best strategy is to try to launch from Kerbin into the plane of the asteroid's orbit, matching its inclination at launch, and being careful that you are going in the same direction as the asteroid's orbit. Once you get into a low circular orbit around Kerbin you should fine tune your angle of inclination at your ascending or descending nodes. It will use up more fuel to do it this way, but it will make finding a close approach encounter much easier when you plan your transfer burn maneuver. Finding that rendezvous may be tricky though if you don't have practice getting a close approach intercept from an elliptical orbit. Don't forget to bring plenty of RCS control, Vernor engines and/or large reaction wheels. Because even after you lock on to a big asteroid it takes a lot of force to turn one around to point towards your maneuver nodes. The other good news is that the asteroids don't do any damage to Kerbin, and the chances of it hitting your station are almost exactly zero. Good luck and have fun!

There is an old problem that had symptoms similar to this. As I recall it had to do with Kerbals being fired in the Astronaut Complex after being declared MIA. Basically the available crew roster no longer matches the progress tracking of those crews for contracts. That thread describes how to change the persistence file to bring the affected Kerbal back to life.

Just as an experiment to test something @Solis could you try a variation of your rocket that uses 4 way symmetry instead of 3 way symmetry? I find that rockets with control surfaces in 3 way symmetry have a tendency to push and pull in odd ways while turning. In 4 way symmetry half of the control surfaces are mainly affecting pitch at any one time, and the other half are mainly affecting yaw. In 3 way symmetry at least two of them are trying to do double duty controlling both pitch and yaw at the same time because at any moment only one fin can ever be parallel to your axes of flight. The problem is made worse if you have roll control turned on for those fins. Now they are trying to do three things at once and can't possibly compensate that well. As @Kryxal said, I would turn off roll control for those fins at least.