Gilph

I have... That's was my point when I said I did not care so much about LOS and relay. It is a hard problem to try and make pilots relevant when the probes have so much functionality. Everything I have in Jool is unmanned, because it's easy. Time lag, even with LOS, may be an option.

Sorry...not on Eve proper, but around it and back and forth to Gilly. I ended up just sticking an RTG right in the middle of the 2 forward legs. Seems all right now. Thanks

Hey, I attached an Octo2 to use to rescue trapped Kerbals. It's fine until I get to Jool, when I get a slow power drain and eventually lose all power. It seems to have a thin margin for power. I'm going to try to add a small attachment to the top port with a small fuel cell and RTG for a little extra power. The one I have in Eve is doing wonderful. Thanks again.

This...I added the small radiators to my nuke rockets...no heat problem anymore

For me, I have Autohotkey installed to automate some things I do for work. A very simple tool to use. I wrote 5 lines so that, every 10 minutes, I copy a persistant.sfs file to a file with a time coded name. It creates a lot of files, but I can go back in 10 min intervals if I made any serious errors, or if KSP goes wonky. Saved me many times. I have just added some lines that will delete all saves older than 5 days, to keep it under control.

Nice timing...now I have a lot to do this weekend That mining rig looks awfully familiar, but I cant place it...is it one of your's? Also, any plans on a 2 man? I add probes to all you craft but if they are nerfing in 1.0.5, the ability to use a pilot to rescue and ferry Kerbals between stations may become more important.

To get back on track a bit... Making the probes OP is really the cause of the problem, to me. I have not seen the details of the upcoming 1.0.5 changes, so it may be best to see how that actually gets implemented. I think the best way is to try to get some realism in the probe inventory, at the risk of breaking all of the unmanned rockets existing today. I care much less about line of sight communication as a restriction, and more about distance. If you restrict starting a maneuver based on how far away you are, it makes a live pilot more capable, as he is controlling in real time. I'm sure there needs to be added capability to make this work,but I like the idea.

It was your error that stranded him, not his. I would rescue him

Sorry, should have been more clear. The Heinlein was attached to one of the inline ports on the edge, close to the habitats, as I was dropping some rescued kerbals off for later pickup. Maybe killing SAS is the way to go if it's too full. I have managed to just fill it up a little and seems to be OK. And now, a Rune signature tribute... Gilph. I'm not perfect...but parts of me are excellent.

Thanks, Danny I already have KJR, so it didn't help. I will try the time warp thing I also now just fill up the nodes close to the crossbar, 3-4 on either side. Seems to make it a bit stable, but with less capacity.

The OP original point is very valid, regardless of the other programs and their capability. The "game" part of KSP needs an awful lot of work. I started in July, and started with career mode, because that was the "game" part. It was a good lesson on how to balance funds, progressively create larger and more expensive things, go back and simplify things once you learned some lessons, etc. Cheap contracts forced you to optimize, or you lost money. You can play hard mode, have addons for realism, and things to make it a challenge. All of that was wonderful. But, the base part of KSP relies too much on outside add ons to make it fun in the long term. They are trying to fix the issues with contracts, and that is great and sorely needed. But I agree they seem to prioritize the wrong things. Making heat a complicated model that needed to be fixed constantly was not good. Adding this communications relay part is not terribly interesting. There is actually no use to create a base at all for 95% of what we do, and the lack of a KAS type capability makes it really annoying. As another said, we delete our orbiting stations to replace with new ones for contracts, which is silly. Mining ISRU has been the only decent long term objective and people have had very creative implementations, but that should be enabling you to do something else. If version 1.1 was just the Unity5/64bit upgrade, I would have been very happy with that. No sense in building a bigger castle in a swamp. But, once they create a stable base, they should start concentrating on some things that make this engaging to play in the long term. Gilph

In my plain old VB around Kerbin, I did actually fill the ring with fuel. When I docked the Heinlein to refuel, it shook so badly that the ring broke apart and everything broke apart. Has that happened to anyone else?

I really love this craft...it is my Interstellar Space Taxi, ferrying 3 kerbals at a time to just about anywhere...I have fuel bases everywhere that's far, so I can even get back.

I have found it very useful. I only started recently and 1.0.4 is the only version I ever played, so I have no experience when there was no ISRU. I am not sure it was done on purpose, but the game does make ISRU hard to use. There is always a penalty involved. Good mining places are usually in far away, inclined orbits that cost some deltav to get to and from. I have ISRU in Gilly, Ike, Bop, Minmus, and sometimes Pol. I also have large and small fuel tankers to transport locally. It's just hard enough to be challenging. It makes rocket designs much easier.

Hi, I have taken the road less travelled. The mining bases are very cool and can generate a lot, but very awkward and complicated without KAS (as mentioned above). My needs are more modest, and it has been infinitely better to land a miner with about 2700-3300 ore capacity, fly back to an ISRU station with 5 orange tanks and docking ports and just fill them up. Docking to refuel in space is easy with mechjeb docking autopilot, it's easier than trying to attach stuff on the ground. To date, I never has a scenario where I needed that much fuel that this system could not satisfy.

Really nice...looking to post my drilling landers as soon as I learn to post and link. They are ugly as sin, unfortunately. Just opened a kerbalx account instead of dropbox..... Anyway, have tested bulldog pretty thoroughly on a clean 1.0.4. The oscillating issue under RCS is the only real issue, meaning the verniers in the nose and tail constantly puff up and down, about twice a second. Uses a lot of fuel if you are not paying attention. Seems like it thinks it's unbalanced in some way and trying to correct. The only other point is that it has no SAS if unmanned, so I used the mechjeb autopilots to compensate.

Hey, Your Bullfrog saved Jeb's life today and helped with my awful fuel station error in Bop (story below). I noticed on your main post saying Bullfrog had issues in 1.0.4. The only issue I came across is using RCS (usually during docking). It oscillates back and forth constantly and drains fuel very quickly. Otherwise, works wonderfully. Question: Are the latest versions linked to the first post always? Sometimes there are updates that don't seem to be, and I wanted to make sure I got the latest. Story: I had 5 contracts for 3.5 mil in career mode to land on Tylo. So, I created a Tylo lander with Jeb and got him to orbit around Tylo. After some stupid fuel routing that prevented me from returning to orbit, and thinking Jeb is stranded on the surface, I managed some creative manual fuel routing and got him into an 12K orbit with 150 deltav to spare. I used it to get to a 70k orbit, but he is now out of fuel and needs to be rescued. My only choices in this version are a space station in Bop that can house Kerbals but out of fuel, and my ISRU station in Pol, which has fuel but no Kerbal habitat. Other than sending a 3 year rescue mission, what do I do? After a bunch of bad decisions to get to this state, I did make one good one...I previously sent a Bullfrog to Jool orbit. So, I went to the Bop station and dropped off the pilot already in the bullfrog. Went to Pol to refuel. Rendezvous with Jeb around Tylo and brought him back to the Bop station. I have my Intersteller Taxi (the excellent Heinlein craft from Rune) already on the way to Jool, and he will drop off a scientist to the station and pick up Jeb and the other pilot to return to Kerbin. Now, it is attached to my ISRU station around Bop, which sways so badly I cant dock my ore lander anymore. It keeps it nice and steady and things can get fuelled again. Thanks again for the great craft.

Sure... Latest update...I installed the latest 1.04 bugfix mod that supposedly addressed the wonky overheating issues. I tried Toad and Tadpole. It takes about 20 min, but the overheating icons eventually show up and don't progress to red. Haven't made any debug changes because I want to spend a little more time evaluating. Also, Squad is trying to address the overhearing issue in 1.1, so this may go away on it's own. Bullfrog is still awesome...just sent to Jool. Thanks

Really thorough and amazing...thanks for posting. I have also been working fairly similar. Will try and post as soon as I set up imgur and dropbox accounts. I have always been different in that I greatly prefer having a miner lander and a ISRU on an orbiting station. It is way too hard in this version to have a land base that uses rovers. I will eventually try and learn that with KAS/KIS, but I am doing OK without it. I also have less kerbal capacity than most others...I don't have that many kerbals that need room. My Ike/Minmus lander only has 2700 ore capacity, but it flies really well on Mechjeb autopilot. My fuel stations have 5 orange tanks and look a little lopsided without the miner, but it also flies really well as long as the tanks are balanced. I'll use a fuel ferry to move 2.5 orange tank worth of fuel from the depot to an orbiting destination (minus the back and forth consumption). This way, the huge lag of two large ships next to each other is eliminated nicely. Thanks again.

Hi, moving this from the Toad/Tadpole thread. Cupcake, I know you are travelling, so I don't expect an answer. Just wanted to post some results of testing to see if others have the same issue. I tested on 1.04, the current version at this time, running 32 bit on Win 7 Pro and 64 bit on Mint 17.2. Results were the same with KJR and without KJR. Used MechJeb for all tests. 1. Bullfrog Mk2 - no issues yet...awesome. 2. Latest versions of Toad (MK2) and Tadpole (MK3) from page 83 here - Both overheat and explode without even starting the engine. They just sit on the runway, overheat and explode. Tadpole takes about 30 sec., Toad takes about 3.5 to 4 min. Have no idea why yet. 3. Prior versions of Toad and Tadpole do not consume fuel in the correct order if side tanks are attached (previously reported in Toad thread). Workaround was to add T400 as top tank if more range was needed and put the orange tank + probe on top of that. I also removed the side ports. Workaround seems to be working fine, but will test more this week. Thanks again.

Hi, appreciate the fast feedback when you are travelling, not a priority. Funny thing about the new craft from page 83. I would go to launch, do nothing, and the craft will overheat and explode...kinda weird. Enjoy your travels...will post when you get back Thanks again

Hi, Am testing your Tadpole MK2 + launcher...what a great craft..I seem to be having some fuel issues. I run the latest 1.04 in Windows 7 I am running the version with the launcher. Things seem to be fine until I detach the orange tank and fly just the main ship. Haven't learned to attach screenshots yet, will try and explain. When I fire the main engine, it takes from the 2 outer drop tanks (T200s), but it also starts draining the round-8 tanks When the round-8s is empty, it then takes from the side T200s (not empty yet) and only two of the four Mk2 to 1.25 tanks (looking from the top, the upper right and lower left tanks) when the side T200s are empty, then the four Mk2 to 1.25 tanks are active, but two are already half empty. when the first two Mk2 to 1.25 tanks are empty, the second pair are still going, but the center tank is not draining yet when all of the Mk2 to 1.25 tanks are empty, only then does the center tank start to drain So, in short, it seems like the routing from the side tanks to the round-8s are off. Seems like they should be in sequence, but they are in parallel. May I ask if you can check? I will test removing the side tank and if it doesnt work, the side ports. I can take apart the sections but cant seem to put them back again. Thanks EDIT: I see there are some fuel tanks embedded and used before the round-8s, but the same problem applies. It also applies with the Toad. The only thing that fixes it is removing the side ports, then the flow seems fine, but at a reduced range. Please let me know if you find anything. Thanks again