HvP

Nice to hear back from you both so quickly. I appreciate the feedback. I'll give it another day to see who else encounters this topic and then I'll see about submitting a bug report if a duplicate is justified. Thanks again.

OK thanks for the link and the thoughts. I checked for it at the bugtracker and it looks like the same thing was reported two years ago back in the 0.21 days. http://bugs.kerbalspaceprogram.com/issues/1170 It was downgraded to low priority, which I agree it is but its behavior seems out of sorts to me. I don't know if it's worth making a duplicate report considering it doesn't seem to be the kind of thing the Squad team is concerned about and I can live with if I have to. Although I guess now would be the time, huh.

I've been having some frustration building utility craft with external command seats that I want to dock inside of cargo bays. Everything is fine except that when I have the Kerbal leave the command seat he or she is forced to spawn on top of any surface that may be directly above their head, no matter how much space they have above them. If I orient the rover so that the cargo bay doors are above it then the Kerbal will leave the seat normally and stand directly in front of the seat on the floor of the bay only if the doors are left open. If I have the doors closed then the Kerbal will end up standing outside of my craft on top of the exterior of the closed doors. If I want to have a Kerbal exit a command seat from within the bay with the cargo ramp then it will always spawn outside of my craft. Frustrating. I'm assuming this is intended behavior so as to not risk Kerbals becoming trapped between inaccessible parts within a spacecraft, but you can exit from any command pod without this complication. I guess it has something to do with the fact that Kerbals in a command seat exist in a quasi state between being on EVA and also in command of a vessel. Is this normal behavior for everyone else? I am running a heavily modded install, but the only mod that sounds like it would impact this behavior might be Take Command which I have tried running without with the same results. Has anyone worked out any building techniques that overcome this problem? Is there a config setting that alters the check for structures around the Kerbal that can be modified? Will this behavior possibly change in 1.1 I wonder?

My first attempt at posting an album on the forums. I hope this is a worthy addition. I give you Hari Seldon Station from my Kerbal Foundation save. It's basically a space hotel and fuel stop. The only mod used I believe was procedural parts for the central fuel tanks and a Modular Rocket Systems 3.75m reaction wheel buried in the center. It is 106 parts and has capacity for 90 Kerbals.

The Enterprise is stunning, but I scrolled down and saw the Reliant and James Horner's French horn fanfare suddenly ignited in my head. One big happy fleet, indeed! Beautiful work Azimech.

You can use fewer solar panels if you align your station to the normal (polar) axis and place rotating solar panels vertically. Even if the station changes orientation your solar panels will auto-rotate to keep 100% of their surface facing the sun. If you instead placed your panels at a right angle to the polar axis then each panel will go through phases of increasing and decreasing its surface area to the sun, reducing your electrical efficiency. Though this is really only important for platforms that need a great deal of electrical generation such as an orbital refinery or that have low battery reserves.

Glad it fixed it! It should be smooth sailing - er, smooth rendezvousing from now on.

You might have the same problem I've had before. Press F4 to toggle the ship highlight and label. I'll bet that the other ship is there but too far away to see visually without the highlighted label to indicate its position. 10km is also too far away to [bracket ] over to a nearby ship so that's why it isn't switching you. I think you have to be within 2.4 km to do that. There is an option in the settings menu to enable/disable the ships labels. Let us know if it helps.

Congratulations on taking your craft to orbit! Just a few points to consider. If you are already at 45 degrees below 5k then you have turned over a little too quickly. Ideally, you should hit the 45 degree mark at about 10k, so that is probably where you are losing some efficiency. I'd guess that the extra weight of the LT-45 compared to the LT-30 may be the culprit here. You want to imagine your ascent as a smooth curve from the point you begin to turn towards a region where you are almost horizontal when you are leaving the atmosphere. I'd say that you did really well considering that. I didn't test it with the swivel engine in the second stage, but you should have no problem if you wait maybe a little longer to bank over. Just a few seconds may be all it takes. Keep in mind that you will go faster the more horizontal you are at the same throttle level and risk your nose falling too flat if you throttle down at that point. Try to keep your nose up if you are overheating until you are past about 30km where you should have no problem throttling back if you find yourself pushing your apoapsis too high. Every craft is a little different, and it's interesting how little changes early in the flight can dramatically affect the later part of the ascent. As always, I believe Scott Manley on YouTube can be of assistance here: First Orbit For Beginners

For that ascent profile the SRB was at 100% thrust, but you're fighting it the whole way which keeps your ascent pretty vertical. Limiting the SRB throttle to 90% drastically altered the ascent but allowed me to turn towards 45 degrees much sooner. It also means that the second stage runs out much deeper in the atmosphere but at a higher velocity. I believe I ignited the final stage at 35km which as at 1100 m/s and exploded the goo due to overheating. I'm sure it's possible to moderate that last burn and ignite it a little later higher up when that speed is safer.

Or much more simply: Reducing the thrust on your SRB in the VAB down to 90% gives you much more control in the trans-sonic region and allows you to fine tune your gravity turn much better in the initial stages of the launch. In fact, you'll have to throttle back on you final stage to keep from exploding the goo canisters because you have so much velocity when staging your final engine. I was able to make 80km by 90km orbit with 300m/s delta-v remaining on your design this way.

Ok, so I just recreated your design in sandbox, MoridinUK, and it will make a stable orbit without modification. The process was this: Begin gravity turn as soon as you hit 30km/s by pulling hard over to the east. Your rocket is actually very aerodynamically stable at that point and thus resists turning over so you will want to keep pitching down - keep your navball centered on the lower edge of the yellow circle of your prograde marker for the entirety of your ascent. When your SRB burns out at 6000m use the opportunity to pitch downward just a teeny-tiny bit below your prograde to drag your gravity turn a little bit more sideways before igniting that second stage. Keep it hard over following the lower edge of your prograde marker until the second stage burns out at about 30km. This isn't a very efficient gravity turn though because a rocket with a little more control would ideally be well past the 45 degree mark by now. At this point your apoapsis should be in the mid 70km range. Jettison the second stage but don't ignite your final stage until you have exited the atmosphere and turned flat into a circularization burn which should put you into a circular orbit between 75 and 80km.

Judging by your thrust and ISP data in that KER screenshot I'm guessing you have the "Reliant" LV-T30 installed in your second stage instead of the "Swivel" LV-T45 in your second stage. The "Reliant" has no gimbal control and at those speeds in atmosphere your command pod torque will not be able to compete against the aero forces. So, if you haven't nailed your gravity turn perfectly - perfectly - you will have no margin to compensate. I'd suggest making sure that you are using the LV-T45 "Swivel" in your second stage for maximum control.

Is it possible that you accidentally switched over to mirror symmetry mode? If there are one or two "M"s in the bottom left try pressing the "R" key to switch back to radial symmetry. Also, I think radial symmetry won't work on parts that were attached in mirror mode, it will always default back to mirror symmetry. Edit: NVM I just reread and saw that it is affecting craft files that were previously saved with appropriate symmetry. Do you have the Editor Extensions mod installed? I find this can sometimes cause a hiccup in symmetry selection.

Am I correct that you are referring to the fact that the camera view hits a hard limit at the zero-degree mark, or axis, on the sphere of rotation? You spin the camera a full 360 degrees horizontally but not continue past 0 "above" or "below" the sphere of rotation. Yes, I find this behavior very frustrating, too. Double right-click does not solve this restriction. The only workaround is to toggle through different camera reference frames with the "V" key until you find an orientation that is adequate. Very difficult during EVA in space though.

The "National Aeronautics and Space Car Auto Racing" circuit definitely needs to be a real thing.

When I interpret a NASCAR driver moving to the inner lane of an oval track as decelerating to move into a faster orbit.

A friend and I have decided to jointly cooperate on a new science career mode program entitled the "Red Shirt Space Program". Vessels are assigned a class designation named after a red shirt from the Star Trek universe, starting with the Original Series. Multiple vessels within the same class are given a Mk.I., Mk.II., etc... Manned exploratory landers are "Scott" class. They are the ones that get things done. Unmanned probes are "Rand" class. They relay data. Mother ship orbiters and similar support craft are "Uhura" class. They gather the data and send it back to command. Manned surface/orbit crew shuttles are "Kyle" class, because... transport. Atmospheric science jets are "McGivers" class, because they are stuck on one planet Of course, there are a whole host of expendable craft types as well...

I had a contract just like this to a rescue a Kerbal stranded in a Stayputnik. Although the Stayputnik probe did not have a hatch I did have the option to EVA her from the option above the inset crewmember portrait and she popped up on the side of the probe just the same where I could control her. I don't know if this remains an option with other probes like the OKTO ones.

As a kid I amazed my friends by constructing simple ring shaped paper airplanes and flying them right in front of their eyes. If you don't believe it then just do a google search for round paper airplanes. Have fun.

Realism for what... Earth? It's not Earth it's Kerbin, a different planet altogether in a different system. Why should we expect a rocket that performs well on Earth to perform well on Kerbin, or vice versa? Why should we expect a similar launch profile, air density, or jet engine performance? Earth and Venus are about as similar as any two planets in our real solar system and yet I highly doubt you could expect any rocket designed for flight on Earth to work properly in the atmosphere of Venus. Why should it do so on Kerbin? You have to learn to design within the parameters of the system you are designing for.

You didn't mention if you were trying to connect them to different parts on the same ship or to two different ships. The KAS struts can only be attached to parts that the game identifies as the same ship. This includes ships connected via docking ports or if you have connected the KAS fuel transfer pipes first. You will not be able to connect struts between two completely disconnected ships at all.

Both approaches certainly have their advantages, but if you're going to send multiple launches within the same window then I would highly recommend the Kerbal Alarm Clock mod. It will give you a heads up when any planned maneuver is upcoming and can even stop time acceleration when any ship is approaching a burn or SOI change whether they are focused or not. It greatly relieves the stress of checking in on which ship needs attention next. Personally, I prefer to run with at most a mothership for orbit that launches a probe or lander and maybe a fuel supply ship following up.

Was very proud of the orbital station I made and was looking forward to using a robotic arm I built using Kerbal Attachment System and Infernal Robotics. But the arm needed to be sent up in a separate launch and attached via a docking port sr. I had it all worked out. (a) The arm would be brought up attached to a tug. ( The electromagnet on the end of the arm would grab the station. © As I had a probe core on the arm assembly I would be able to maneuver the arm's docking base onto the station using the robot arm in reverse. It was going well. Successful rendezvous, perfect alignment of the arm, even the rotational axis was spot on. Electromagnet engaged and holding. Bend the arm so that the tug is aiming at a right angle to eject away from the base and prepare to bend the arm 90 degrees to drop the now open docking port down into contact with the one on top of my station. Decouple and... immediately lose power because my batteries were on the tug. I was able to ponder the relationship between electromagnets and electricity as my robotic arm floated serenely off into the sunset.

There are only a couple of things I can think of that haven't been mentioned. Is control given to a part oriented in the correct direction? If a probe core or docking port that is oriented upwards has control then it might not know where "backwards" is from the perspective of the command chair. Make sure that you "control from" the command chair. If it's happening on other crafts then this is unlikely but worth checking. Also, make sure that the new key binding you set up doesn't have the same key for "backwards throttle" assigned to some other function already. I've found that having the same key mapped for two different functions that could overlap can really confuse things, especially now that each key binding can have a secondary function. Also, make sure that you have the button checked to be enabled in the scene for "Staging/docking" modes depending on how you drive. Lastly, I don't know if you have any mods installed like Action Groups Extended, but it can set action groups to "Toggle" rather than a simple press and hold. If you are using Windows I'd also just check and make sure that "sticky keys" isn't turned on in accessibility.