ineon

I'm not sure that I agree with your suggestions: I'm not sure what you mean. I can move the camera under vehicles both in the VAB/SPH, and in flight/landed. While it is landed it isn't the best view, but I still can. Do you have a specific example? What is " interference"? You need a really rigorous definition if you want to programatically decide if one part interferes with another. How would structural failure be different from an explosion? If you melt a cargo hold then it is going to be as functionally useful as an exploded cargo hold. Wouldn't this just be an OP radiator? I often have parts exploding due to rocket exhaust, e.g. when I have a stack decoupler attached directly under an engine and both are set on the same stage then the stack decoupler often explodes but that is fine. I would be really annoyed if the engine automatically shutdown because something exploded.

@Dr.K Kerbal - just be aware that this thread is mainly from 2 years ago, and some of the info may be out of date. I don't think anything specifically about kerbostationary orbit has changed, but atmospheric density and drag has changed a lot since this thread was originally posted so getting out of Kerbin's atmo may be significantly different.

Just wondering: are you a coder? I am a programmer by profession, and I find that non-coder that I come into contact with (sales, product managers, ...) consistently underestimate how much coding effort something takes - often by orders of magnitude. Pure Speculation: I would guess that the VAB/SPH code is well separated from the drag vectors in flight, but the drag vectors are tightly coupled with the code outside the VAB/SPH. So, while the code for displaying these vectors already exists, it would be really awkward to try to use that code in the VAB/SPH. There are probably some other weird snags, like it is possible to detach parts from a craft and then the Centre of Drag tool would have to be explicitly told to not worry about it, or editing a craft and recomputing physics might be really laggy. None of these things are show-stoppers by themselves, but they all would need doing. And finally, don't forget Hofstadter's law:

I don't think there is a single "best" design for a space station. I tend to build modular stations, but mainly because I don't know all of the requirements that I am going to need when I send the first part up.

Ohhh... that makes a huge amount of sense. That does sounds like a very consistent way of defining surface-attached and non-surface-attached parts.

(I think this is a general question and not particularly related to any specific craft - but if a specific example would be useful then I can upload one later.) I recall reading that attaching items radially are affected by drag, and that items attached in a stack are not. What happens if you attach an RCS thruster behind a wing (where you would usually attach control surfaces)? Is that radial or stacked, and (more importantly) is it affected by drag? I think that I also recall reading that it doesn't matter how it has been offset and rotated, the item still behaves the same as if it were not offset or rotated. I assume that this means that I can make a RCS thruster look like it is attached on the body just behind the wing, when it is actually attached to the wing just next to the body? Final questing: do RCS thrusters work inside cargo bays? IRL that would not work, but I wonder if the game engine is simplified enough to get away with it.

Background I have a probe with Probodobodobodillidlydine HCES and only a small battery. I am sending it from LKO to LMO to pick up some science. Steps to repro Do maneuver from LKO with SAS on Press pause on battery + probe core electricity supply SAS automatically turns off as there is no power to the probe core Go off and do something else while it gets to the Mun Return to probe an re-enable power on both the battery and probe core Turn on SAS Result is that the SAS light comes on, but the stability itself does not Work around Going back to the Space Centre, or loading another ship and then coming back seems to resolve the problem. This has happened with 2 separate ships. Let me know if there are any problems with the steps, and I will upload a .craft file or a video or something.

I built a docking ring for my space station which doesn't look too dissimilar to what you want to achieve. If I remember I will post some pictures (but don't hold your breath). Try googling for "Kerbal Docking Ring" and you should find some tutorials on building a ring like structure. I ran into the closed loop problem that Snark mentions, and ended up clipping the loop parts into each other to give it some semblance of closed-ness. I also strutted the parts together. I completely agree with this. I think I put in about 5000m/s dV into my rocket to get it out of the atmosphere. It had some of that left over once it got to orbit, but not loads. It also really wanted to fly backwards. The other lesser problem that I found is that loops will tend to be high in part count. To get the angle looking smooth you need lots of little pieces. My PC is a little old, but there is a noticeable pause whenever any ship approaches the station. The alternative approach that I have seen (but not done myself) is to construct the ring in orbit. A simple(ish) setup might involve 24 structural fuselages with a docking port on one end of each and a docking port rotated by 15 degrees (24 * 15 deg = 360 deg) on the other. You will need a few tugs on the launch vehicle and probably some extra docking ports on some of the parts to help close the link. This approach will require fewer struts and might also be less draggy on take-off. However I think that it will be very fiddly to construct in space.

Another idea that you might want to try: Can you flip the canards backwards around 2 axes? For example, if you want to rotate the canards around the X axis, can you instead rotate it around the Y axis and then the Z axis? That might make the controls the opposite of the opposite of what you want ( = what you want). The slight downside is that there is a chance that they will be correct for pitch but the opposite for roll which should be ok as long as you are setting up the control surfaces 'properly'.

Yep. The parachute-in-the-service-bay is a good idea, and requires less fiddling on EVA, The only problem that I have had with it is accidentally having the CoM higher up than the service bay meaning that the pod landed the wrong way around. That was an easy mistake to learn from. KIS also has it's version of service bays, but it has the small advantage of the parts in the bay not a 'real' part of the ship - they are part of the ships inventory. That way they don't take up the parts limit, and physics does not need to simulate them.

If you are up for using mods you can use the Kerbal Inventory System and Kerbal Attachment System (KIS & KAS). These will allow you to use an engineer on EVA to attach a parachute to the pod after separating. You will need to send the parachute up either one the main rocket, or keep a useful cache of stuff on a space station. Don't forget your wrench.

This isn't quite true is it? I thought that you can remove the crew report on EVA then enter the capsule and it will be added to the 'generic' science pool - freeing up the crew report science slot for another report.

I wonder if a better solution would be to use a pod from whatever has been launched longest ago. They already have that info in the Tracking Station. Or maybe they did. @PT I assume that you launched the shuttle after the station, did you? Maybe the algorithm for working out what is the root and what are peripheral modules is part count that doesn't span docking ports (i.e. things that are permanently connected together). A space station can easily be made of many small components - none of which have a part count over a few dozen, but a space plane is a complex beast and could easily contain 100's of individual pieces, none of which can be separated off (non-catastrophically).

[quote name='Just Jim']4 antenna... antenni??? [/QUOTE] Antenna is the plural, antennum is the singular* [quote name='Goody1981']I think, unless you are playing with the Remote Tech mod...[/QUOTE] Even without Remote Tech Mod, similar functionality will be brought in (non-mandatory) for version 1.1. If you want to play with this then you might want to consider playing as if you did have remote tech now. [I][SIZE=1]*Not actually true.[/SIZE][/I]

On my career mode, I installed Kerbal Alarm Clock and asked it to give me the transfer windows to each of the planets. The first one to come up is to Moho, and so I sent a probe. It doesn't have much, just a thermometer and an antenna, but the window was there so I wanted to send *something*. I notice now that I am getting contracts that see much more "advanced" then I would expect. I have not yet landed on the Mun, but I am already getting contracts for "Build a base on Duna", where I expect to be getting more missions in the Kerbing SoI. Two questions: 1. Is this because of that probe? 2. If I terminate the probe will I get more appropriate contracts?

[quote name='*Aqua*']Be gentle when maneuvering! This includes thrust control. [/QUOTE] Great advice. When you are at 20-30km altitude you have plenty of time to get things right. If I was flying as you were in the last vid I would stage the lower half and then make sure that I am pointing in the right direction and not rotating before (gently!) increasing the throttle. Another piece of advice (I don't think anyone mentioned it above) is that the Caps-Lock key changes the you to 'fine grain control mode'. If you can point the rocket in the general right direction, then using smaller changes get it to stop rotating and apply finer course corrections you should have a little more success.

1. Put it on wheels 2. Drive it into the water 3. Use the Kerbal Inventory System/Kerbal Attachment System mods to remove the wheels 4. Sail the 7 seas pillagin' an' lootin' to your hearts content

Have you got enough electrical power?

Have you got a specific example? Can you post a screenshot of one of these aircraft?

Nice. What is your patch conics limit (I think that was what it was called) set to? I'm guessing 5 or 6?

Cool stuff. You've given me another method in my arsenal for trading time for dV too :). If you do manage to do it reliably can you post a screenshot of the maneuver (with the mechjeb planner numbers if you use it)?

I have had to change the way that I re-enter for 1.0.5. I had been finding that I was coming in too fast. I now try to make sure that I pretty much only have a capsule and parachute for the final re-entry - no engine, no tanks and no heatshield. I think that more mass occluded behind the same cross-sectional area made it more difficult to slow down. The other more kerbally way to try is to fly sideways to increase your area that is hitting atmosphere...

There is no way of setting the maneuver to fire automatically, but I use [URL="http://www.curse.com/ksp-mods/kerbal/220289-kerbal-alarm-clock"]Kerbal Alarm Clock[/URL] so that I know when any nodes are coming up. With it you can create a maneuver node, then set an alarm (usually about 1-2 mins before you need to execute it), and then go away and do something else. You will get a reminder that you need to do that maneuver just before you need to do it, and a helpful "Jump to ship" button to take you there.

Must work without the MechJeb hold altitude feature?

What always gets me is misreading the specs for testing in flight particularly with regards to the altitude, e.g. I get up to above 60,000m and test the component (or do the experiment or whatever) and don't fulfil the contract then read it again and realise that it says under 60,000m. Did you double check that you fulfil all the other specs?