HvP

If you're getting sudden jumpiness from your station after docking or switching to the station after loading then the problem is often due to autostruts. The biggest offender seems to be autostrut to heaviest part, and occasionally with autostrut to root part. The reason it happens is because the autostruts realign themselves after a staging change, including docking, and since this often includes having a new or different heaviest/root part then the autostruts let go of what they were holding and jump to a different part that could be across a particularly flexible joint. This can cause weird forces across the station and sometimes ends up being a buggy mess. The best advice so far is to use autostruts sparingly and to try strutting to grandparent part if you really need them.

I think I can see both sides of this issue. If I'm understanding correctly, there is on one hand the opinion that full orbital information, including patched conics, should be available from the very beginning of career mode. And on the other hand there is the opinion that how the game progresses through tracking station upgrades is currently satisfactory. My own opinion is simply that the game does not actually give the player any good information about what the mysterious "patched conics" is, what that upgrade would reveal, or what the lack of patched conics entails. Perhaps the mouse-over text for tracking station upgrades should explain that "Without an upgrade to our patched-conics tracking software we can't accurately calculate trajectories between two worlds yet. You can try, but you might get lost."

Helicopters are diabolical, and I can't pretend that I've figured out how to make a properly functional one in KSP but: As I understand it, it's recommended to right-click the prop blades and disable their pitch, yaw and roll control inputs. Of course, this assumes that you are using something other than the props to control these axes, such as reaction wheels, a tail rotor assembly, and/or ailerons.

Good to know. It would be great if you could add that info to the bug tracker to make it official. I don't play the console version so I can't replicate the bug.

@Zamolxes77 In the stock game any bases or stations you create are yours and stay under your control as long as they are in stable orbits or landed on the surface and aren't suborbital. The only possible exceptions would be if you forget to add a command pod or probe core, in which case they would be tagged as debris by the game. There are some mods out there that significantly change how stations and base contracts operate, however. As long as your base has a command pod or probe core the vessel will be visible in the tracking station and you should be able to switch to it at any time from there or visit it with other craft. Any crew you leave on the station are also still a part of your space program and you will still have control of them when you switch back to the station. In fact, once you complete the contract you don't have to leave your craft or Kerbals there. You can do anything you want with them. (keep in mind that some contracts require the station to meet all requirements for an extended period of time before the contract will be fulfilled.) Also, be aware that most contracts require a base or station to be launched AFTER you accept the contract. So you probably won't be able to use the same craft to complete any "build new station" contracts you've accepted after you launched it. And some contracts will be offered later on asking you to add to the original station or base with additional modules or crew. You may want to do so if it advances your plans for that world, and if so then don't forget to add a couple of extra docking ports for later expansion. If you do take a lot of these contracts then it can be difficult to supply enough Kerbals to crew them. Since each new hire costs more than the last it can eat up your funds. Rescue missions will help you replenish your crews without having to pay for new hires. I often make a rescue ship capable of going to low Kerbin orbit which has space for anywhere between 3 to 6 Kerbals, and enough delta-v to make rendezvous with several craft on one flight. An extra 600 to 800 delta-v after making orbit should do. This lets me accept several LKO rescue contracts in advance and then go and bring them all down in one flight. It's the cheapest way of doing it, if a bit tedious.

I'm as old as I've ever been; and as young as I'll ever be. If a hot water heater heats cold water, shouldn't it be called a cold water heater? (literally had this thought in the shower, for obvious reasons.)

I think the next step after landing on the Mun would be to see if they can land a second ship right next to the first one. A mission like that has a couple of advantages. 1) If you can land on the Mun once, you can do it twice. So you know that the main thrust (haha) of the challenge isn't something that's too hard for them. 2) They are building incrementally upon established skills. It allows them to refine a skill that they already know; and further adds a new layer of complexity - making sure that they can do it deliberately at a target chosen in advance. 3) It is a skill that is required for future missions: i.e. rescue missions, building surface bases, completing survey contracts, etc... 4) It forces a person to learn how to read the navball to maneuver towards a target, and really understand what effect on your trajectory each of those directional inputs has (even in reverse.) 5) It takes practice. While you might get somewhere in the ballpark the first time, there's always room for improvement. And sticking a pin-point landing is nearly as rewarding as landing for the first time.

Also, if you don't have access to any of the other engines and all else fails sometimes the simplest solutions are the best. You might just wait several seconds after the second SRB burns out before you separate it to ignite your final stage. If you're moving too fast through the air it allows you time to get into the thinner layer of atmosphere and/or slow down a little before going to the next stage. Just because the rocket flips in dense atmosphere doesn't mean it will still flip in more rarefied air. Depending on your ascent trajectory you might not even have to ignite the final stage until you have left the atmosphere. Leaving the SRB attached gives you the advantage of keeping those fins on the back to stabilize your craft until you are high enough that the reaction wheel in your capsule no longer has aero-shock to fight against. Now this technique depends entirely on the steepness of your ascent, whether or not the second stage booster gave you enough momentum to get above the atmosphere, and how much speed you can afford to lose before igniting that last stage. It won't be particularly efficient, but it could possibly save the mission.

I have a few observations. The LV-T30 liquid fueled engine has no gimbal control, and the fins you are using are also not controllable. This means that your only source of directional control is the reaction wheel inside your capsule which could be very weak compared to the aerodynamic forces acting on your craft. A better choice, if you have access to it, is the LV-T45 engine. It has the same aspect and slightly lower thrust, but it does have a gimbal to allow the engine to pivot and reorient the craft in flight. You can probably even get away with using a LV-909 "Terrier". It's much lighter and more fuel efficient, but doesn't have nearly as much thrust, which may be just fine as a final stage. I'm also guessing that, unless you have turned down the throttle on your second stage, that you are going VERY fast when you switch to your upper stage. The faster you ram through the air, the more it amplifies any small deviation from forward and tends to turn you around. If you look at your g-force meter on the right side of your navball, or the TWR (thrust-to-weight ratio) when you expand the stage column on the right, you really don't want to have a TWR/acceleration much higher than about 2 to 2.5 gees at most during your ascent. Also, make sure that your Science Jr. materials bay is connected directly to the top of that service bay. In your new screenshot it looks like the bottom of the Science Jr. is clipping through the top of the service bay and stuck to the top of something inside it. This can trick the game into creating more drag than there should be because it doesn't see a smooth connection between those parts. (P.S. - I also noticed that you're getting the bug that creates multiple copies of the delta-v icon. As far as I'm aware, this is happening on console when you switch engines in the VAB and it adds another delta-v app to recalculate the numbers for the new engine. Until there is a fix for this I think the best way to prevent this is to try and limit how often you replace engines while building in the editor. At least, until you exit and reenter.)

I've not used Burn Together, but I suppose it could help you get your boosters to all turn back and start an approach for landing together before Stage Recovery takes them once they fall out of physics range. If you plan on using FMRS to manually bring in your boosters, I doubt you'd be able to successfully control multiple boosters at the same time (using Burn Together) because slight differences in their speed, orientation and trajectory would mean they would likely reach the ground at least a few seconds off from each other. That could man one booster has landed and cut throttle while another is still a 100 meters in the air. I don't know how well Burn Together integrates with the those other mods I mentioned though. No harm in trying it on a test flight; it would be cool to experiment with. And just so it's clear: FMRS will allow you to go back and manually land any number of boosters before you tell it to integrate their complete flights with the save game in which you safely put your payload into orbit.

Sort of. The mod Stage Recovery will automatically recover dropped boosters if they meet certain preconditions; like if they have a probe core, enough fuel and high enough TWR. You don't get to see them land, they just get recovered and the funds are added back to your bank. Alternatively, the mod Flight Manager for Reusable Stages (FMRS) will make a save point when you stage away your boosters or otherwise split a craft. You can then continue to orbit with one stage, and then jump back to the point at which you separated the boosters and manually land them as if you had followed them to the ground in the first place. Afterwards, the mod will splice the two saved games together so that both stages have completed their trips, and you can continue playing normally.

@OutOfAblator Are you using the turboshaft engine or the electric rotors? The turboshaft engine uses liquid fuel to work, but the rotors can use a lot of electricity. Your launch clamps provide a constant supply of electricity but as soon as you decouple them your batteries will drain without some other way of generating power like solar panels, RTGs or fuel cells.

It may not be the plane so much as your reentry angle. If you're going up to 250 km suborbital then you probably have a very steep reentry. Space planes seem to work best for me reentering the atmosphere with a periapsis no lower than about 40 km, but since you are suborbital your trajectory would of course have to intersect the ground. This causes you to fall through the thin upper atmosphere very fast which doesn't allow you to slow down very much before you slam into the denser atmosphere at high velocity. In an effort to slow yourself down you have to try and pitch up quickly which over-stresses the connection to the wings and they fail. So here's what I think might help. Once you are leaving the atmosphere on ascent, see if it's possible to burn more horizontally aiming for the horizon. Try not to push your apoapsis higher than about 80-90 km. Instead, focus on making your trajectory wrap around the planet as much as possible. Go long, not high. You should still have time to launch your payload since you are just trading height for distance. On the way back down, you will now drift for a longer period of time in the high atmosphere where you can pitch upwards or downwards, and use that drag to slow you down a lot more before you fall into the denser air. You'll have more time to bleed off speed and won't always require as much force pulling up. Also, a tip: Don't set the wings to "Rigid Attachment" in their right-click menu. While this makes them more rigid, it also doesn't allow them to bend before they break. Autostrut to grandparent or root part would work better.

There is a reported entry in the bug tracker for it here: https://bugs.kerbalspaceprogram.com/issues/24477 It looks like the extra icons get added when engines are removed and replaced in the VAB, and then the delta-v app creates a new instance to report the delta-v for the new engine. I don't know of a workaround yet.

It appears to be a known bug. There is a reported entry in the bug tracker for it here: https://bugs.kerbalspaceprogram.com/issues/24477 It looks like the extra icons get added when engines are removed and replaced in the VAB, and then the delta-v app creates a new instance to report the delta-v for the new engine. I don't know of a workaround yet.

Good to see that you've been able to get it up to a decent height @Lechu. And just so you know, having the thrust marker forward of the CoM/CoL isn't really a problem. It just means that you're pulling your weight instead of pushing it. What you really don't want is to have the thrust marker above or below (or left or right of) the center line going through your center-of-mass. That causes rotational forces that will pitch and spin your craft. If you take that horizontal line coming out of the purple thrust marker, imagine extending it horizontally in both directions. Now try to line up your thrust so that this line would pass right through the center of your yellow mass marker. This is actually a bit difficult in KSP because the editor doesn't have any good way of showing you this except either guessing, holding a ruler up to the screen, or turning your camera view so that you are looking straight down the middle of your craft from the front or back. I don't think this is much of a problem for you right now, but it could be a small part of it. It's also possible to very slightly rotate the entire engine a tiny amount up or down just a degree or two if needed. As long as the thrust is aiming through your CoM. If you are comfortable using mods then you should look up RCS Build Aid. It has a function that allows you to see how much torque your engines would apply to your craft. Of course, it also makes it much easier to balance RCS placement if you need that in the future.

Those contracts will not unlock the ore drilling parts, sorry. But even if you do accept, they usually have pretty long time periods in which to carry out the task so it's not unlikely that you will develop the tech before time runs out. Personally, I wouldn't accept any ore drilling contracts unless I already had a plan to set up a mining base on that world, and I never accept the ones that ask me to transport it back to Kerbin. Although, I've also never noticed a reward of 1,000,000 funds before either. And Minmus is the easiest target for a contract like that.

Hey @Billy34668 it sucks that it's not working right for you. I don't play on console but maybe I can help a little. First, what kind of mode are you playing in: sandbox, science mode, or career? I know you asked about starting another career, but I just want to make sure there's no misunderstanding. The ground deployed science units won't really do anything in sandbox mode, but you'll see them working in both a science and career mode save. You should also know that getting good data out of them is a little more complicated than your regular science instruments. They don't give immediate results like the other instruments. Once you deploy them they will gradually start building up science points and then will slowly transmit them in small chunks over several days in the game. You should be able to right click on them and see if they are listed as active and how much science per day they are generating. Your experiments at the site will also need power. Depending on how many experiments you have set up you will need at least one, or possibly a few, OX-Stat-PD Photovoltaic Panels or Mini-NUK-PD RTGs. Every site needs a Probodobodyne Experiment Control Station, too. It's basically a probe core to control the experiments while you're away from them. Just set them down close by on the surface within a few meters of each other. All of these parts are the dedicated Breaking Ground parts that fit in the SEQ cargo storage containers (none of the other basic solar panels or probe cores will work.) Which Kerbals deploy the instruments and how experienced they are will also have a big effect on how efficient and productive the experiments are. An engineer with three or four stars of experience that deploys the photovoltaic panels will cause them to provide more power for more experiments than a one star engineer or any other class of Kerbal. Similarly, five star scientists will get the most science per day out of the experiments if they are the ones to deploy the science instruments. Lastly, the station needs to have a communication link back to Kerbin to transmit their results. If you are on the far side of the Mun, or are on a planet out of range of Kerbin, then you won't be getting your science results until you can launch a relay network to facilitate transmission. The new surface features that the scanning arm interacts with will NOT appear in an old save, however. This is to guarantee that they don't spawn below a preexisting base or rover. When you start a new game they should appear. These are just a few basic things that maybe you are already aware of, I don't know. If there's any more information you can share about how your science station is set up it would really help in figuring out where the problem is.

@BenKerman The various markers in your screenshot look to all be in the right place for decent flight. Are you still having difficulties with pitch control? If the elevons are still not moving in the right direction on reentry then it could be that your CoM is moving behind your CoL due to using fuel. If the plane is still flying straight without tumbling though then that isn't the problem. What do the markers look like after you have drained the fuel from the tanks? The only other possibility I can think of is that the CoM moves too far forward after the tanks drain. This would make it difficult to get leverage from your elevons and causes your nose to dip more and more. But it wouldn't cause the elevons to move in the wrong direction; they just wouldn't have as much force. Edit to add: one final possibility is that your control point is changing for some reason. This often happens after docking, but I don't see a docking port on the the craft.

Hello @KatKiing and welcome to the KSP forums! It sounds like your problem is that you have accidentally added trim to your flight controls. Trim is a setting that adds automatic input in certain directions to compensate for uneven flight characteristics of a plane. For example: If your plane has a tendency to pitch up too much you can add downwards trim to counteract that. On consoles, you add trim by holding down the left top button while moving the left stick. If you don't want this then it can be reset I think by holding down the left top button and clicking in on the the left stick button. This won't keep it from happening again though. I believe a recent update added the option to turn trim off completely in the settings menu if you don't want to use it.

You're very welcome. Please let us know how it's going. I'd love to hear an update on how your first successful docking went. Good luck!

It's a confirmed bug starting with 1.8. Here is the report on the bug tracker if you want to add your experiences to it. https://bugs.kerbalspaceprogram.com/issues/24061

Good point. I don't build a lot of space planes, and I tend to favor passenger jet styles instead of fighter jet designs. So my engines tend to be attached to nacelles on either side of the fuselage and under the wings which often makes weight distribution a little easier, for me at least.

From my understanding, what you're experiencing is an inherent property of tailless delta-wings at low speeds. The delta shape just plain (haha) requires high angle of attack to gain lift without a bigger pitch lever either from a rear tail-plane or canards. I also prefer not to use them unless they happen to solve some weird weight/lift distribution puzzle for a particular design. The real advantage of delta-wings is to move the shock cone created by supersonic flow to the rear wing tip, allowing the leading edge and other control surfaces to behave more like they were operating at subsonic speeds. But KSP doesn't model this complex air flow which makes delta-wings more aesthetic than practical.

Good work! There's no harm in experimenting with different designs. Just save it as a different plane so you don't lose the working version. Its a game. Try all sorts of ideas, play around with it, see what works and what doesn't. And of course have fun!