[LT-05 Micro Landing Strut Problems]

• Does this also happen with an otherwise identical rocket that has the landing struts removed?
• Toggle the aerodynamic overlay (F12) during flight and see what happens the moment the spinning is just barely starting. Do you see some small arrows wher the landing struts are located or not?
  (If yes, try increasing the diameter of the fairing a little)
• Many rocket-flipping problems are caused by the center of mass shifting behind the center of lift as fuel is depleted. In the editor, display both of them and then drain some fuel from the tanks, beginning with the one(s) farthest away from the engine(s). Observe if such an effect happens
• In the latter case, you would usually try to add some lifting or control surfaces to the bottom of the rocket to shift the CoL further down, preventing it being overtaken by the CoM

[Rotating Reaction Wheel Axle]

 

[Shielded docking port node!!]

Do you mean something like this?

 

 

[Penalties for leaving debris in orbit in careermode]

How about tying the "Terminate" button to a fee, thus encouraging the players to recover the debris themselves?

The motivation to do so at all should be left to the player IMHO

[Mun orbit apogee and perigee]

On 26.9.2016 at 1:47 PM, Gaarst said:

Apo- is technically a bit more correct than api- but just choose the one which is more apieel-ing to you (had to do it, forgive me).

 

On 27.9.2016 at 0:11 AM, FleshJeb said:

Apiho/Periho

Apoho/Periho then.

[What Do You Use Instead Of Landing Gear (Legs)?]

For atmospheric craft e.g. a Kerbinside vertical SSTO I like to use the Swept Wing Type A to double as winglet as well as landing gear. It gives good base diameter, aerodynamic stability and mediocre crash tolerance. For non-atmospheric bodies and long trips, the mass could be an issue however.

[Hiding orbit lines for contracts]

Not sure if this is introduced via a mod, but in the Tracking Station at the top, there is a toolbar to enable/disable displaying various craft types and on the right, there was a recent addition of options for waypoints and orbits both active and offered.

[KSC Mini Biomes at R&D. Where did they go?]

2 hours ago, LN400 said:

Do I need to hug one particular loaction on the walls of the buildings?

This.

Also depends on building level which biomes are available. The wiki page on KSC documents this AFAIR

[Use RCS and Main engines at the same time?]

• You can very easily operate the RCS thrusters with the ijklhn keys and the main engines with ctrl/shift in normal flight mode
• RCS thrusters have a tweekable (right-click on them either in the VAB or even later in flight) that allows them to be activated by the ctrl/shift main engine throttle as well (i.e. boosting the main engine's thrust)

[Kerbal Showers and Magazine Racks]

With USI LS, you have the secondary "habitation" value computed for each craft which sets an upper limit on mission duration. You would increase it by adding more crew modules, with certain types (cuppola) giving a bonus. Basically this accounts for kerbals wanting it nice and cozy (your showers).

[Do you know?]

To put it simple, there's two types of heat that are tracked for each part: "skin" temperature and "core" temperature. When heat is induced from the outside of the vessel, e.g. when too close to the Sun or too close to air that was compressed to a great extend in a very timely manner and is not being pleased about this, then the skin temperature on the parts that are pointing in the appropriate direction and are not occluded by other parts wil rise (comparatively rapidly).

The core temperature rises by heat transfer between parts or from skin temperature to core temperature (diffusion, slow), also certain parts like mining equipment and the LV-N engine generate significant amounts of core heat when operational.

Radiators are good for getting rid of core temperature. During reentry, your only problem is skin temperature. The speed at which skin temperature is diffused to the part's core and from there to the radiators and back to the outside is way lower than the speed of the skin temperature rising by prolonged exposure to hot plasma. Your main chance instead is to have only appropriately sturdy parts (in terms of skin temperature) exposed in this manner (so as said above, place a sufficiently large heat shield on the nose of your vessel, or for the poor man's version turn your rocket and reenter engine-first. They usually survive a reentry from LKO better than chutes or science equipment).

[Need a lift!]

Alternatives:

• Rendezvous and just EVA your Kerbal, taking along the science data. Leave the old capsule as debris
• Dock using the Klaw a.k.a. http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Advanced_Grabbing_Unit
• Install the KAS/KIS mod and put a docking port on the craft retroactively
• After docking, either tug the vessel back while docked or just transfer some fuel from the rescue craft (e.g. if the rescue craft would be the new and improved replacement)

[Ways to store more fuel?]

7 hours ago, Streetwind said:

I have a sneaking suspicion that spacecraft construction is not the only thing holding you back. You may also need to improve your piloting ability. It is entirely possible to take a lander which has enough fuel for three consecutive Mun landings and takeoffs, and run it out of fuel in a single, poorly flown landing approach.

Regarding the "how": look up how to do a suicide burn. Essentially on non-atmospheric bodies the flight profile still matters due to gravity losses. You can very easily try this out by just hovering over the ground: the fuel will be depleted soon. The same principle applies if instead of hovering, you try to make a "slow" descent (i.e. constantly keeping your vertical speed under some maximum). Or, to put it yet another way: if you come to a full stop (also vertically) 1km over the Mun's surface, you will accelerate again and have to burn yet again before impact, wasting fuel.

What you want to do, therefore, is to burn as late as possible with maximum thrust. This is however quite hard to time and perform correctly, with the risk of either coming to a halt too soon (wasting fuel) or too soon (lithobraking)

[Periapse kicking for rendezvous.]

Related:

 

[The "F3" key used to go both ways?]

2 minutes ago, SSgt Baloo said:

Not answering, but I don't know how else to subscribe to the thread so I'll see the answer sooner rather than later.

There's a "Follow" element right of the thread title and above the "Answer this question" button. If you click on the word "Follow", a menu should pop up where you can subscribe.

[Time to start 1.2 hypetrain?]

But can we buy our tickets yet?

[Mk 1-2 Pod versus Mk3 Cockpit]

If the Mk3 is to be destined to use with spaceplanes, i.e. more towards surface-to-low-orbit operations than long interplanetary flights, then it should only focus on properties necessary for this, which would include

• high max skin temperature
• low weight

Anything else should be nerfed significantly, which would be

• max core temperature (ascent/reentry shouldn't take too long?)
• impact tolerance (take an effort and land on your landing gear; about aero stresses: you don't want to make a highly maneuverable fighter plane with mk3, do you?)
• EC (engines should be in operation during the whole ascent, i.e. the alternator would be running)
• torgue (you have control surfaces)
• add a relatively high constant EC/minute consumption (for the fancy electronics in the modern/endgame pod it is; e.g. provide SAS in return)

[Bumpier surroundings of KSC]

Kerbinside exploration by plane should yet stay possible. So the general idea to increase stress on the landing gears depending on biome sounds good if it is balanced in such a way that lighter craft are still able to safely land on grass.

[How to change age of station for contract problems]

4 hours ago, ElWanderer said:

When ships are docked together, it's the most recent launch ID that counts for the new vessel.

You mean the oldest launch ID?

Also, don't they revert after undocking again?

 

[Moving big heavy things in KIS/KAS.]

For the first question, they just have to linger around nearby the active kerbal. They do not even need to be Engineers like the latter.

For the second one: I would use KAS for this, i.e. put some strut connector ports and a pipe connector ports (not sure about the exact names right now) on both vessels, then right-click on the port on one vessel while EVAing with an engineer and select the appropriate menu option that extens a cable/strut from the port to the Kerbal. Fly to the opposite port and select the appropriate right-click menu option again.

[Mod(s) Sorting Function]

Another useful scenario, depending on the implementation, would be a way to check/list which mods a vessel uses (e.g. when trying to compete in Challenges).

[Shielded docking port - add a node in the VAB]

I guess this might be a problem with the animation and the node appearing/disappearing. So how about having all retractable docking ports (the Mk1 inline hasn't been mentioned yet) start in extended mode in the VAB/SPH? (Maybe even make them non-retractable if that would cause issues)?

[Bumpier surroundings of KSC]

The ultra-flat grassland around the runway has to go away! People should be happy about the tier-0 runway they are given and actually try to stay on it during launch. Maybe it would be sufficient to just add some dam/barriers around the runway (so as to "shield the environment from explosions noise")?

[What class is Dres]

So you want to land it near KSC then?

[Remote Tech Downlinks needed?]

2 hours ago, LN400 said:

that allows various new settings. I am not entirely sure since I haven't played around with it much but have a look at the settings to see if anything sounds applicable.

Have a look at http://remotetechnologiesgroup.github.io/RemoteTech/guide/settings/#alternative-rules, especially the "Root" range model. With this you can establish Dish-to-Omni connections over medium ranges. Especially this allows for one-way links in many cases.