Auriga_Nexus

I almost never use SSTO. In fact I rarely ever use horizontal takeoff to orbit period. The only things that I build in the SPH are land vehicles (rovers, etc), atmospheric craft, and shuttles - the latter I save as subassemblies with a decoupler attachment as root, then take them to the VAB where I slap on a big LFO rocket and a pair of SFB's to get it to orbit. Most of this is because I am limited on the amount of time I can spend playing KSP on a given day, so I tend to stick with what I know works. Currently, I'm building a refinery station in LKO, with a resuable lander and rover for a Mun/Minmus mining operation. The station core I put into orbit using a design inspired by NASA shuttles. However, since that design is remarkably inefficient, for everything else that goes on the station I use a three-phase rocket consisting of a multi-stage launch vehicle, a payload consisting of a dockable station part, and a command module/lander. The launch vehicle gets me to orbit and within docking distance of my station, at which point I jettison it to expose the rear docking port using a stack separator and use RCS to manuver into position and dock. Once I am docked I use a second stack separator that detaches from the payload. The payload stays docked to the station,and has a second docking port on the other end for future additions, while the lander vehicle uses radial-mounted ILX engines to burn retrograde and a combination of engines, airbrakes, and a drag chute to land safely back on kerra firma.

Couple of things I've done to help with docking. Firstly, if you have a control stick/joystick, you can set it up to be able to rotate and translate simultaneously without switching modes or using the IJKL keys. I have my Logitech 3D Pro set up so that stick movement controls my rotation axis and moving the hat switch controls my X (L/R) and Y (U/D) translation thrust. For forward/backward RCS thrust I have two buttons on either side of the hat switch that handle that. Secondly, you can dock even without looking at the outside of your ship, if you know how to use the MFD's in the cockpit. Basically if you click on the buttons above and below the MFD screens in IVA view you can get different displays that will tell you about your ship, orbit, etc. First you want to be on the target select screen which is top row third from the left. You can use this to select your target docking port as well as your reference port. Then you click the button on the far right of the top row to pull up the docking indicator. There's an orange circle that indicates your rotational alignment, put that dead center and you should be facing the direction of the docking port. (If you see an orange arrow rotate in the arrow's direction until you see the circle). Once you've done that, use your X and Y translation to line yourself up. There are two green lines, a crosshair, and a prograde/retrograde indicator. The P/R indicator shows your translative velocity, the crosshair is your docking port, and the green lines are the target docking port. You want to move up/down and left/right until both the green lines and the P/R indicator are dead center. (If your P/R indicator is off center the lines will move in the opposite direction. The further your indicator is from center, the faster the lines will move. Use this to help guide your movements.) Once you have the orange circle, the prograde/retrograde indicator, and the green lines all centered on the crosshair, you are lined up and ready to dock. At this point just move forward or back until you touch. The crosshair display also shows the distance and relative velocity between the two docking ports. Just before you make contact you want your relative velocity to be 0.1 or less, this will ensure you dock properly and you don't bounce off the other port. If you learn how to use the cockpit MFD's you can line up and dock without even seeing what you are docking to. Whenever I add modules to the KISS (Kerbin International Space Station), I typically use a 2.5 m docking port on the back of my vehicle, and a command pod with ILX thrusters on the other side of the module to be added. Once I dock the module I use a stack separator to disconnect the command module (which leaves a second docking port open for the next module) and head back planetside. Thus, when I am docking I am typically facing away from my target and backing in, which makes the MFD's in the cockpit very useful.

Launched my Kerba VII rocket with the intent of putting 4 comm satellites in Munar orbit then landing a drone rover on the surface. Made it all the way only to realize I could not move my comm satellites because they had no reaction wheels. Reloaded last save and changed their sub-assembly but was too tired to do the launch all over again tonight. I have the RemoteTech mod so I need the comm satellites to move my drone rover. It's job will be to explore the surface, do mineral surveys, and find a good spot for an eventual manned Mun landing.

LOL actually the only work we do in after-hours shifts are answering support calls and keeping an eye on our systems monitors in case something goes down. They need someone there 24/7 on a just-in-case basis, but as long as no one calls and none of our servers explode there's literally nothing to do once you've patched systems and run backups, and these are 10-hour shifts. In fact KSP is a good game to play in this environment cause once I get my rocket into orbit, I can leave it circling if something crops up. Plus, seeing as my senpai at the workstation next to me is usually on Old Republic most of the night I don't really see much of an issue

Hi all, I'm Auriga_Nexus and I've been playing KSP for about a month now. It. Is. Awesome. Seriously I wanted to get it back when it was in beta stage but didn't have the money, I literally bought the game with the first paycheck I got from my new job (I'm a Network Operations Center technician at a datacenter in SE Wyoming). Since then I've been playing almost nonstop, I'll even play it at work during the after-hours standby shift. That being said I've been lurking on the forums to pick up tips on how to rocket, but I figured I should at least introduce myself. See you space cowboys!

Still does this even with 32-bit. I've stopped playing Career mode for now but I really would like to figure out what's wrong here.

I was playing a contract where I had to pick up 3 NPC Kerbals from a crash site on Kerbin and take them to a KerbinSide base. It took me about 20 minutes to fly a supersonic jet to the other continent. I landed ok, but when it came time to find the Kerbals a strange bug kept happening. The Kerbals would appear as target signatures, but once I got within 250 m of them they would fall "through" the ground for about 300 m before stopping accompanied by a "splashdown" sound effect. Tried going to tracking station then back to my jet, doing so would reset the ones that had fallen through but they would do it again the moment I got close to them, either taxiing or on EVA. These are my installed mods: KSP: 1.0.4 (Win32) - Unity: 4.6.4f1 - OS: Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (6.1.7601) 64bit Better Science Labs Continued - 0.1.2 ChuteSafetyIndicator - 1.0.1 Community Resource Pack - 0.4.4 Contract Configurator - 1.6.3 Contract Pack: Anomaly Surveyor - 1.3 Contract Pack: Base Construction - 0.2.1 CC-CP-SCANSat - 0.5.2.1 Contract Pack: Field Research - 1.0.6 Contract Pack: Initial Contracts - 1.0.4 Contract Pack: Kerbal Space Station - 2.1.2 Contract Pack: RemoteTech - 2.0 Contract Pack: Grand Tours - 0.1.7 Contract Pack: Unmanned Contracts - 0.3.10 Contract Pack: Tourism Plus - 1.1.8 Docking Sounds - 1.2 DSD Mobile Labs - 1.0 Editor Extensions - 2.12 AGroupOnStage - 2.0.11 RasterPropMonitor - 0.21.2 Kerbal Attachment System - 0.5.4 Kerbal Engineer Redux - 1.0.18 Kerbal Joint Reinforcement - 3.1.4 KerboKatzUtilities - 1.2.9 CraftHistory - 1.4.3 KerbalScienceExchange - 1.1.1 Kerbal Inventory System - 1.2.1 KSP-AVC Plugin - 1.1.5 LaunchCountDown - 1.7.5.86 Kerbal Konstructs - 0.9.1 ModularFlightIntegrator - 1.1.1 Docking Port Alignment Indicator - 6.2 EVAHandrailsPackContinued - 0.2 Final Frontier - 0.8.6.1370 PartCommander - 1.0.2.4 Pilot Assistant - 1.11.6 RemoteTech - 1.6.7 SCANsat - 1.1.4.1 SpaceTux: Shared Assets - 0.3.6 Kerbal Alarm Clock - 3.4 Alternate Resource Panel - 2.7.2 TweakScale - 2.2.1 Waypoint Manager - 2.4.2 I'm going to hazard a guess that part of this comes from the fact I have the 64-bit version (I think) but otherwise don't know what's wrong.