Zephram Kerman

Hey, that's good. I really like the nebula and the way the ship looks. Lots of correct details too. Cool.

The small rectangular map was in earlier versions. It was replaced by the geodesic sphere map thing. Not dumb at all; the tutorials and images often don't mention version numbers.

Ok, I know what to do about that. Thank you Majiir!

Output_log.txt is here. Oh, and the only mods are Kethane and MechJeb2.

All right. Thanks for the tips everyone. It sounds like I'll stick with 1000x and small scanners, until I go someplace bigger than Kerbin/Laythe. All my targets right now are small, so that'll make my missions easier. Now that that's sorted out, can anyone point me to a "known issues" or troubleshooting FAQ? I've tried to dig through this thread to locate solutions, but always have trouble finding things. I think it would be helpful to many others if troubleshooting info were in a more obvious place. The specific issues are: • the grid showing up on the game menu screens, • unable to end flights on one save but the other is working fine, and • VAB starts to malfunction when I try to attach a detector. And, yes, I deleted the old version first, and yes everything is in /GameData. I remember reading the answers somewhere in this thread, but can't find it anymore.

So, how many detectors does it take to scan at 10,000x? I built one with 21 small detectors which works well at 1,000x, but isn't nearly enough for 10,000x. Maybe it's not worth the effort, but I'm curious if anyone has done it? BTW, I get around power problems by putting my polar-ish orbit along the terminator. That way never goes into shadow unless I drop the inclination.

TommyGun, these works of yours just make my day. Thank you!

Immediately after entering Jool SOI, quicksave, make sure your path crosses Laythe's, then slow down carefully until you get the encounter.

I've been learning orbital techniques two ways: • watching MechJeb if I'm at home; • KSP 'How To...' forum if I'm at work.

This is the sound.... of science!

I love this stuff. Keep up the good work!

Yes, that's definitely a big deal. Any target altitude above 70 km should be reached by first circularizing, then losing weight, then Hohman transfer.

Several months ago, I collected some data to determine this scientifically. This chart is old, but the drag model hasn't changed since then, so it should still be accurate. Basically, I launched the same rocket over and over again, with slightly different settings in the MechJeb Turn Shape dialog. The result of the study is (for that particular rocket, TWR = 2.0) the ideal turn start is around 6-10 km, with a shallow-ish trajectory. Steep trajectories were quickly fatal, but it's possible to go too shallow. Maybe someday I'll do another study with different altitudes, per Nao's suggestion. Another thing I learned in this study goes contrary to what most people think: • if your rocket is slow (TWR < 2.0) climb shallow to reduce gravity drag; • if your rocket is fast (TWR > 2.0) climb steep to reduce atmospheric drag; • so basically adjust turn shape to keep speed at terminal velocity and full power. Of course, this doesn't account for space planes. That's a completely different can of worms!

Maybe your miner is just off the edge of the deposit. To avoid this, I always put the little detector on my miners. It's mainly to confirm they are on a deposit, but it also enables the miner to use the map.

Wow, fifteen minutes and this hasn't been answered yet! Here's what you need to do: • first put a kethane scanner on a satellite to search for kethane deposits; • make another vehicle with kethane tanks, drills, and some source of ElectricCharge; • convert the kethane to LiquidFuel or whatever you need. Easier said than done, of course. There are all kinds of engineering challenges, but that's part of the fun of KSP.

Yeah. Use the longer trusses, and brace them with overlapping struts. That helps some, but it still wouldn't be rigid enough to fly up to orbit. However, it's possible to make pyramid-shaped towers that are very nice and rigid. The I-beams look good for this.

It was trimmed and tuned on Kerbin, but works well enough on Laythe too. Unfortunately, I forgot to compensate for Laythe's greater distance from the sun. So later versions have four gigantor solar panels. Someday I might do a rocket plane version, for use on Duna and Eve.

I agree with this. So all you have to do is build the vessel so that CoM is exactly at the center of the fuel tank(s), and put the VTOL engine at that same point. Here's an example: (By the way, this one features your wonderful BirdDog landing gear system.) Basically what I did here was to build the core and fuel tanks, position the VTOL so that it matches CoM, then position the outer wings for proper CoL. It would have been easier with a single fuel tank, but I was feeling inspired at the time to do twin-hull stuff.

376° W? I wonder if that has anything to do with you circumnavigating the moon? That said, I'm enjoying this thread. I'm looking for a colony site too, and comparing your lat/long with my kethane map. Your research is saving me a lot of wheel reinvention, and it's an entertaining read. Thanks for doing this!

In preparation for building a colony on Jool's moon, Laythe, KSP mission control sends an autonomous rover / plane to scout for viable locations. Intrepid uses a single jet for VTOL, the kethane mod to refuel, and Brotoro's ingenious BirdDog landing gear technique to drive around.

If something falls off, the joint has broken because of too much stress. That's either bumping into something, or torque from acceleration. Not sure what you mean by engines "spinning out", but I think it sounds like boosters not strutted correctly. I've noticed it sometimes helps to start the strut closer to the root part and finish the strut on the outer part. Screenshots are very useful, especially for troubleshooting. Here's how: • press F1, this puts an image in your /screenshots folder; • use Paint or something to edit and compress the file if you want; • upload the image to DropBox, ImageShack, or whatever; • get the URL of the uploaded image; • put that URL into a forum post with the "Insert Image" button.

Well hey, congratulations on progress. Yep, I agree with MBorbrik, a little learning goes a long way in KSP. Just reading the "how to" area is incredibly educational.

Very useful info there. Thanks for mentioning it; I hadn't discovered it yet.

Yep. It's gotta be in focus, because the mod is attached to the part, and is active only when the part is active. Also, I've found my screensaver (blank screen) stops the mapping process. I've gotten some pretty good maps, but they took a long time. Put the probe into a polar orbit, do the 50x time-warp to get a rough map, then slow down to 5x and let it run overnight to fill in the top and bottom rows. (I like to switch view to "free" and point the camera into space, so that the GPU doesn't work so hard during that time.) Next session, change inclination to about 80°, use 10x time-warp, and let it run overnight again until the arctic regions look pretty good. Next session, change inclination to about 60°, 10x, and in just a few more hours your map will be nearly solid. If all that seems too compulsive, remember that a quick, rough map will give you enough data to pick a mining site.

We have a bunch of good recorder suggestions here. But how about video editing stuff? Windows MovieMaker is... um.... not so good.