jkool702

That actually worked. Good call!

Once you leave Kerbins SOI you will be in orbit around the sun. Select your target and you will see ascending / decending nodes appear. First correct your course exactly at an ascending / descending node (you will either burn normal or anti-normal), and this will align your orbit with the planet's orbit (you can plan this with a maneuver node). Second, after your orbit is aligned use another maneuver node to prograde/retrograde such that your orbit intercepts. You will see two arrows representing your relative position at closest approach. play around with the maneuver node until the arrows are at the same place, and you will see the path change color (indicating your orbit will take you into the planets SOI). Third, after entering the planets SOI burn retrograde so that you will be in an orbital trajectory (rather than an escape trajectory). you will officially be in orbit around a new planet

MOAR BOOSTERS Sorry I couldnt help myself... I find that using the NERV engine on a large craft with a detachable lander is the way to go. Possibly launch a craft over a few launches and assemble in kerbin orbit. In a lot of ways the answer really is more boosters, since you have to launch more fuel into space for the voyage. After unlocking the ISRU converter it gets easier, since you can refuel in flight by mining ore. EDIT: here is a screenshot of my craft which is in Jool orbit. While there are plenty of methods that work, maybe this will give you some ideas http://imgur.com/e6GpR3D

I just had an unmanned probe do something very strange....somehow it got stuck in an orientation such that both its solar panels got zero sunlight while it was out of power, leading it to not be able to move to reorient itself into the sunlight. It finally got just a hint of sunlight and i was able to rotate it to recharge the batteries, but afterwards the SAS on the satellite was broken...The little "SAS" light would turn on but all the options disappeared (it was a model with all the options). It wouldn't even stabilize itself, and is slowly spinning more and more out of control. Is this supposed to happen, or is this yet another bug?

Any chance on yours the clamps are hanging off the launchpad when you launch?

Its not about MOAR boosters, its about having a larger % of your craft be boosers. (admittedly this is a little over simplistic but ELI5 appropriate) If you launch just a SRB with nothing attached to it, you are already 100% boosters, and thus adding more wont help since (sadly) you cannot be more than 100% booster. 2 boosters would still be 100% boosters, and would have the exact same TWR, DV, etc. Realistically you want to add a payload though. Lets see how the % boosters of a craft changes. START: 20 tons boosters to 10 ton payload --> 66.66% boosters ADD 20 tons boosters NEW: 40 tons boosters to 10 tons payload --> 80% boosters --> 13.66% increase ADD 20 tons boosters NEW: 60 tons boosters to 10 tons payload --> 85.7% boosters --> 5.7% increase ADD 20 tons boosters NEW: 80 tons boosters to 10 tons payload --> 88.88% boosters --> 3.17% increase etc, etc, etc Each time you add moar boosters it changes what % of you craft is boosters a little less, hense there being "diminishing returns"

Thanks for the tips. I will try downsizing and switching the elevons. I will also remove some of the precoolers if their intake isnt worth all that much. I dont have rapiers unlocked quite yet, but they were the next thing i was planning on getting from the tech tree and i have 809 science atm, so I will have them sooner than later (probably sometime today, as I have a mission about to visit jool / bop for the first time which I anticipate will give me loads of science). Thanks for the tips! EDIT: I'll try and get away with less struts too. That design requires a crazy amount of struts to keep the wings stable (otherwise it flapped like a bird). Again I guess smaller will help me out with that... I'll also check out scott manleys vids

So I've been trying to build a SSTO spaceplane and cant seem to get it to work. Ive read a few guides and feel like my plane should be working, but its not. Here are images of it: http://imgur.com/0kn7TOt,MfUyS4m,oFG4pfs http://imgur.com/0kn7TOt,MfUyS4m,oFG4pfs#1 http://imgur.com/0kn7TOt,MfUyS4m,oFG4pfs#2 I can't tell if its the plane design or my (bad) piloting skills thats causing it not to work. I usually go at 45 degree ascent to ~10k, 10 degree ascent to ~13k, and then 0-5 degree ascent for the rest. It seems no matter what I do though I top out at around 18k altitude and about 900 m/s speed...I cant seem to get past there. Dropping my altitude to ~16k I can get my speed up to about 930 m/s, but always lose it when I try to ascend again. Does anyone have any tips on design and / or piloting for the plane? Thanks! Also, it seems that if I roll even the slightest bit SAS is completely unable to stabalize it...it continues to roll back and forth trying to stabalize it for literally the rest of the flight...any ideas how to fix that as well?

I had an idea for end game career mode (by end game I mean the entire tech tree is unlocked) - setting up permanent resource generating stations with the ability to (automatically?) sell these resources for cash! The obvious examples I had in mind (based on current stock game) would be to set up a solar farm (sell electricity for cash) and a mining operation (sell ore and/or fuel refined from ore for cash). I think this helps to continues the sense of progression after the tech tree has been completely unlocked, and would offer an alternative to income from completing contracts. Since after the tech tree is finished career mode is effectively a cash limited sandbox, this would allow you to focus more of the sandbox part and not feel the need to do (often tedious) contracts should you not want to. Thoughts?

Im not sure....it just seemed to fix itself for whatever reason EDIT: so far today it has started happening again and then sopped happening yet again. I have no idea what triggers it to start or stop....

Here is an image showing what I am talking about. Here the SAS is set to go to maneuver, and the maneuver is directly to the left of my current location. Despite this, SAS will only go left yaw about 1/4 of the way (can be seen in bottom right of the picture). http://i.imgur.com/fjDyze8.jpg Has anyone else had this problem? and/or have an idea of how to fix it? Having a buggy SAS is annoying...

KSP 1.0.2 windows 7 64 bit I'm not sure exactly how to replicate it, but sometimes the yaw control in SAS stops working properly. It will only go left at 1/4 of maximum (you can see this on the bottom left yaw indicator as well as by how the craft moves), however it will yaw to the right as full speed (possibly even higher than full speed). Its almost as though instead of yaw varying between -1 and 1 it varies between -0.25 and 1.75. This often results in SAS producing uncontrollable spinning to the right, since it will go to the right very quickly, overshoot the target orientation, the left yaw will kick in but not do much, it will spin 180 degrees, the right yaw will kick in again, it will speed up going right, etc. During this manual yaw control still seems to be working correctly. I have found this problem will sometimes fix itself, but I'm not sure how / when. It has persisted when shutting down / re-opening KSP. It has happened to me on multiple ships / landers.

That worked, thank you. I changed the post to solved, however having to use an empty stage (or any stage, but many times itll be empty) to get the staging order to save definitely isnt straight forward...

Here are some Images of my Minimus orbital refinery / fuel depot and mining lander. I like to think its a pretty efficient setup All done on stock KSP - no mods of any kind were used. http://imgur.com/oXqqZRM,3CSGHUQ,G2yg3aa http://imgur.com/oXqqZRM,3CSGHUQ,G2yg3aa#1 http://imgur.com/oXqqZRM,3CSGHUQ,G2yg3aa#2 http://imgur.com/0fP2HLP,WxfJgBj#0 http://imgur.com/0fP2HLP,WxfJgBj#1 Exact resource amounts held can be seen in the pictures, but suffice it to say my refueling station when filled weighs about 920 tons (not including the lander, with lander attached its over 1200 tons). This roughly breaks down to: 580 tons of Liquid fuel and oxidizer, 20 tons of mono-propellant, 150 tons of ore storage, and 170 tons of other (i.e. the dry weight of the station). The station is in a nearly circular 50 km counter-equatorial orbit around minimus. My lander is capable of hauling up 21,000 ore (210 tons). The fuel used in the lander's round trip equates to about 3,500 ore, making each round trip produce a net gain of about 17,500 ore. This allows me to fully replenish the station (including ore reserves) in 4-5 trips. The total cost to get the station into Minimus Orbit was about 1.5 million, broken up into 2 launches costing about 750k each. The first launch got the station into ~100k Kerbin orbit (which took a number of tries due to the extremely un-aerodynamic shape of the station). The second launch took the lander up with some ore to rendezvous with it, and give it just barely enough fuel to achieve minimus orbit. The only thing I dont like about it is the part count is kind of high (mainly due to the crazy number of struts needed to get the station launched), so its rather laggy whenever I actually use it

KSP 1.0.2 windows 7 64 bit I have found that when you alter your staging mid flight (ex: move parachutes to an earlier stage) that is doesn't get saved anytime you go away from the craft for ANY reason (switching crafts, loading a quicksave, going to space center, restarting KSP...). Its rather annoying to have to make the same change to staging over and over and over...

Thats funny, my minimus station is the one where the ISRU in orbit. My lander has A LOT of ore capacity tho (21k) so it works out pretty well. My interplanetary lander has the ISRU on the lander tho which has helped out a ton for completing contracts from the surface of planets

Today I've been chipping away at a "mega mission" which involves a number of contracts on Eve, Gilly, Duna, Ike and Bop. Thanks to the ISRU converter I'm able to do it all with one ship! All the contracts are set to net my space program about 9 million cash, in addition to science and reputation

One time I redesigned my lander in the VAB and added more fuel tanks, but forgot to reattach the engines. Didnt notice till I hit orbit and was ready to separate the lander from the main craft....

Do you all prefer to leave the ISRU converter in orbit on the main ship / station, or do you like to put it on the lander / mining ship? I've tried it both ways, and I kind of think I like it better on the lander. Yes it adds more weight, but it lets you top off your tanks on the surface. This gives you more fuel to make orbit again, and lets you air on the side of caution with your suicide burns (since fuel efficiency on the way down is no longer an issue unless you actually run out of fuel before you hit the ground). Granted I have a tendency to make large / heavy landers, so adding an ISRU doesn't add that much weight to the craft. It also makes doing several missions on a planet surface with a single lander possibly, since you can fill up the tanks at each surface stop. Anyways what do you all prefer and why?

This problem seems to have fixed itself for my lander....very strange bug indeed

Is there any sort of ETA (official or unofficial) for the Unity 5 update? And is my understanding correct that unity 5 will finally allow the game to utilize more than one CPU core for physics calculations?

This sounds like the same problem, except (thankfully) my ore tanks dont empty when I redock. Maybe this has to do with the fact that the ISRU is on the lander itself? Also, the steps on your thred arent a foolproof way to reproduce that. I also have a refinery in Minimus orbit and followed those exact steps and dont have a problem, my lander that has an issue is attached to an interplanetary ship...

So admittedly this isnt the worst bug in the world, but on this lander (craft file w/ launch vehicle: https://www.dropbox.com/s/arg1kkd8nzwoc8x/Orion.craft?dl=0 ) mining fills up the ore tanks instantaneously. I use action groups for mining (1 lowers drill, 2 starts surface harvester, 3 stops surface harvester). The instant i press "2" the tanks go from 0 to full, and as much as i love getting 10,500 ore in a fraction of a second it seems wrong. KSP 1.0.2 windows 7 64 bit

I found a bug, but i think i know why its happening. This occurs when the ISRU converter is on, engines are on, and the uppermost fuel tank(s) the engine(s) are drawing from is out of fuel. Since the ISRU converter adds fuel to all tanks, it adds small amounts of fuel to the uppermost tank (the one the engine draws from first), and instead of using that fuel AND drawing from the next fuel tank, it ONLY uses the small amount of fuel that is being put in the uppermost tank, leading to thrust being reduced to only draw whatever amount of fuel is being put into the uppermost tank. This just caused each engine on my lander to go from 60Kn to 0.7Kn output and made me crash :/ The solution is to just turn off the ISRU converter while engines are running, but this is definitely a bug and shouldn't work like this.

The title says it all. I understand why somethings are disabled at very slow speeds, since the directions of some stuff (like prograde and retrograde) can move quickly at slow relative speeds. the direction of the target cant. ironically enough, at 0 m/s relative velocity the target icon it not moving AT ALL, and thus there is no reason to disable it. Having these enabled for slow relative speeds would make docking a lot easier for me.