Clear Air Turbulence

Ah, that seems to have done it. It seems that when picking up the kickback I have to click with the mouse exactly level with the spot where it will attach to the decoupler?

I wonder whether anyone can help me with this. I am having some odd behaviour from the TT-70 decouplers. When I try to fix my kickbacks onto them, they don't sit on top of the decouplers. The tt-70s kind of get buried inside of them. See picture What am I doing wrong? Any advice would be appreciated.

So this is weird. The back story: I was rescuing Bob and Bill from a being stranded on Minmus. They managed to land safely - I aerobraked them in and we did a night-side touchdown, coming to rest on a mountainside somewhere on the other side of Kerbin. When the sun came up, the lander was lying on its side, with the hatch fortunately not obstructed by the ground. Bob went EVA. He was holding on to the side of the ship, approximately one metre from the ground. When he let go, there was a huge cloud of dust and Bob disappeared. Flight log says Bob crashed into the ground and was killed. I've had Kerbals fall into the water from suborbital height without parachutes and survive. This one survived about 30 days on Minmus without supplies. Then he is killed by a one meter fall. What gives? Is this a bug? Did I do something wrong? Or does Squad or Fate sometimes just have this cruel sense of humour?

I've just had an odd experience. I was on Minmus, trying to rescue three Kerbals who had got themselves stranded there. I had done lots of quicksaves on the way. At one point, Jebediah, bless his soul, was trying to use his jetpack to get into the lander. But jetpack stuck on on, and before he could get it de-activated, he had escaped Minmus and was orbiting Kerbin. So it goes. Then, in the process of boarding the other two Kerbals and taking off, did something wrong, activated quicksave... and loaded the wrong version of the game. Instead of going back to the point just before take-off from Minmus, I went all the way in time to a much earlier moment when I was orbiting Kerbin, getting ready for ye Hohmann transfer. After I had stopped kicking myself, I planned to re-do the whole &*$ excercise... only to note that Jebediah was still in orbit around Kerbin. ...? In this time line, this had not even happened yet. Is this a bug, or a feature? And, can Valentina Kerbin go back and murder her own grandmother?

That was interesting. I did not have enough fuel to get back all the way. But I think I sort of by accident ended up doing a gravity slingshot in reverse using Mun. One of my orbits had me going into Mun encounter, then mun escape with a drastically slower velocity. Now I have just enough monoprop left to try aerobraking. I may just get these guys home.

OK, landed & managed to get both Kerbals back into the pod. Now I have to figure out how to get back home with almost no fuel in the tank.

No first time I landed without mechjeb all right. Quicksave was my friend. But the rescue mission is going to be a real challenge. I have to land in a specific spot. That will be interesting. In general I use Mechjeb to check whether a given ship works, eliminating my own cack-handedness as a factor. If it does, I know I should be able to pilot it manually thereafter without disasters.

By the way, how do I mark this thread as answered?

That's interesting. When fixing the Kickbacks on my new ship, I noticed that somehow they won't go on the top of the TT70s. The end up fixed to the body of the main booster, with the decouplers somehow inside them. That looks bad, but try as I might I can't get it to sit properly

Hi Goomblah, thanks for those ideas. I have built a two-stager. Just a big central booster & the two kickbacks, plus my Even Heavier Lander, which I have adapted from the stock Superheavy. I got into orbit, so I guess that was my first successful SSTO. Although something went wrong with the separator; the one kickback did not disconnect but stayed stuck on the launcher all the way up. Somehow we kept flying straight and we had exactly enough to circularize, so it served its purpose. I now have a lander with just about enough d-V to get to minmus and back again, so it will be a test of my flying skills from here on. Much obliged!

Thank you! Very useful. It's interesting how many ways there are to build a rocket

I actually landed dead on, and without mechjeb. Just put the thrusters on really low and concentrated. But then (1) I found out the ladder did not reach the ground (2) So Bill could not climb back up after planting flag (3) So he ended up underneath the ship, jumping up and down (4) And ship was a bit top heavy... It was all very painful after the glowing feeling of accomplishment.

Wow, thanks for all the help. I have used the TT-70s but it still blows up. As far as I can see the empty booster tanks fall away and then hit the main ship on the way down. Then everything goes pear-shaped, if pear-shaped means tons of liquid fuel igniting at the same time. Scarecrow, I like your ship. I don't like aspartamine staging; so finicky. I will look at your design. But how do you ensure your lander has enough delta-v to come back? According to my calculations, I need about 1950 m/s to land on Minmus, pick up my lost Kerbals, and return them home to the Mother Queen. - - - Updated - - - "TT-70 Radial Decoupler collided into Rockomax Fuel Tank Rockomax Fuel Tank Collided into Rockomax Fuel Tank AV-R8 Winglet collided into Rockomax Fuel Tank Structural failure on linkage between Rockomax Fuel Tank and Rockomax Fuel Tank" and so it goes

Sorry, fixed. My one worry is about that long fuel line (see second pic)

Hi all I hope I am not posting in the wrong forum with this. I am hoping for some mentoring in this flying to minmus thing. I am in sandbox mode. Basically, I flew successfully to Minmus in an adapted version of the Kerbal X (just a bit more fuel for the lander) & landed safely. But, (long story short) Jim Kerbal somehow bumped into the craft and tipped it over. Attempts to right it failed and the thing exploded. I have three surviving Kerbals on Minmus, and I need to send up an unmanned craft to rescue them. So now I am trying to get a lander up there and back. My problem at this stage is building ze rocket. Three components: Launcher (asparagus staging, mainsail engines) Transfer (Rockomax & Reliant) Lander (with plenty of fuel to get back) And because I am a n00b, I am still using mechjeb (blush) Picture below. My problem is this: the thing behaves oddly in flight. Initially it got off to to a grand start and managed to get to the top of the atmosphere without exploding. But at the last stage of the launcher, i seemed to lose steering authority, or whatever it is called. The nose just dropped and we headed back home, going back into the atmosphere at more than a km per second. Not good. I added some fins to the central stage, making sure they were not tangled up with the asparagus trappings. But now the thing explodes violently the moment the first stage (the boosters to right and left in the picture below) detaches. I can't figure out why. They cut off and fall away as they should, and then suddenly there is a huge explosion & then boosters 3 and 4 zoom off on their own, ram into the top stage, and blows everything to kingdom come. Any advice would be appreciated?

I only found out what an SSTO is yesterday TUMB Lost their account in the Great Forum Massacre of April 2013

OK. And maybe it's not a priority. I have Kerbals stranded on Minmus. Clouds ain't gonna help them.

I don't see clouds. I don't know what you mean by visual replacement pack. Or cloud pack. Is there something else I need to install, besides the EVE mod?

N00b question here: I have installed it in KSP 1.0.4. Running this on a Mac. I assume I just put the folders in GameData like usual? And, will this cause performance slowdowns? I think I see no clouds, but IO certainly seem to see slower rendering...

I guess. At least for Jebediah and Valentina. I have a good mind to leave Bill on bloody Minmus.

Well, we got to minmus. Landed safely again on manual Bill Kerman went Eva. On returning and trying to board he bumped into the spacecraft and overturned it. Pro tip: launching while lying on your side is not encouraged.

Yup that's how I understand it too.

I know. I was talking about the ascent. With two extra boosters radially affixed on the upper stage, the thing was top heavy and seemed to spend a lot of fuel in the atmosphere.

That was interesting. Built a rocket to go to Minmus. But somehow I flew to Mun instead. Last bit of descent was in the dark. Managed to land safely - without autopilot, note - Safely means that my velocity was 0 m/s & all my Kerbals were still alive. When the sun came up I was lying on my side. Hmmm. Plain was perfectly flat. I deduce I must have bounced a couple of times. Question: is there guidance on building a simple rocket with sufficient delta v? I just stuck a couple of extra engines laterally on my last stage but it was a very inelegant solution & I think was not very aerodynamic.

Hmm, I think I am going to try something simpler, like flying to the Mun or something...