Zephram Kerman

Oh cool. I like the slogan and your idea. If it were my project, I'd make the KSP logo small, and in its place put a small rocket doing loops or something. But it's already good the way you made it.

For anyone interested in optimizing their gravity turn, there was a very thoughtful challenge thread on the subject. I posted a graph of 40 flights using different combinations of turn start altitudes and curve shapes.

Here's one post that I wrote a while back, when someone else asked the same thing. debris reduction and mitigation At the end of that post is a link to another thread about techniques to prevent leaving things in your sky. Cool avatar, btw!

It might be exhaust heating, but more likely a wobbly attachment problem. The mission report after you 'end flight' will tell you what went wrong. If the first malfunction is 'exploded due to overheating' then it's the exhaust thing. If it is 'structural failure between...' then you need to find a different way to connect those two parts. Sometimes a connection is almost perfectly rigid, sometimes it's like a bowl of spaghetti, and I've never been able to figure out what makes the difference. By the way, it's usually ok to launch with full thrust. My designs actually run all engines, often including the lander stage, in order to help with the Goddard problem.

Closette's ascent speed profile has saved my Kerbals so much fuel, Bill made a copy of it on a yellow sticky and stapled it to Bob's helmet visor. Here's a graph. Coincidentally, the curve of speed vs altitude sortof resembles the gravity turn curve of range vs altitude.

The orbital construction mod actually is pretty cool. The whole point of that mod is to launch several flights to bring the materials for assembly in orbit. Another way is to build the station in the VAB or SPH, put it on the launch pad or runway, then edit the persistent.sfs file to swap its location with a different ship already in orbit.

KSP is complete without any mods; nothing else is required. But the mods add a lot of fun to the game. Personally, I think MechJeb is so useful that it should be required. For more info about ISA MapSat, as well as editing the files, check out the KGSS Journals. (Links are in my signature.) These two subjects have a lot of attention in both issues.

Also, unlike the normal controls, in this case WASD are relative to the camera angle.

For me, the decision to use winglets really depends on how I plan to fly while in the atmosphere. Usually, my gravity turn is almost exactly ballistic. (The nose is always pointed close to the direction of travel.) In this case, winglets are almost dead weight. But if the gravity turn needs to be more aggressive for some reason, winglets offer resistance to tumbling as well as a little bit of lift in the off-axis direction. ASAS doing hundreds of little adjustments using winglets is not as troubling as it might seem. If you have MechJeb, you can see the "steering losses" are very small compared to gravity drag and atmospheric drag.

Hold down all three: left alt, left shift, and left ctrl; press d, then release the other three keys.

Just in case you don't already know, planes don't turn like rockets. The lift of the wings supplies the force to turn your direction of travel. So first bank, then pull up. ("Bank & yank" as they say.) Otherwise, perhaps try a totally different configuration. Because of the way various things work, I've been having good results with delta-style planes, like the Concorde. Also, using alt-ASDWQE to angle the wings and controls really helps with trim convenience and getting off the runway.

If you're up to it, manually edit the leg positions in persistent.sfs file.

It happens to me too. Just yesterday, in fact. The image is pretty tiny, but I think my lander is configured similarly to yours, except that I have those LV-909 engines running at launch. They disconnected consistently each flight after using time warp. After a lot of experimentation, the problem went away when I removed the engines, discarded them, and replaced them with the same type. I'm not sure about this, but I think the problem appeared after I loaded the vessel. Those engines did not disconnect during the first few flights, only after loading the .craft file the next day. Since the problem went away after connecting the same engines with different PIDs, I suspect it has something to do with the saving or loading the .craft file.

Very happy to see the internal view coming along so nicely. Good stuff! Thanks guys!

It has to do with the way control surfaces are mapped automatically. It's done using the same logic as RCS thrusters. That's why all the control surfaces in KSP behave a bit differently than standard airplane style. For example, if you in a coordinated left turn, pitching up to stay level, and then try to roll right: • the ailerons work properly, but in order to help the roll, • the rudder moves left (pushing the nose down) and • the elevators split up and down like elevons (also pushing the nose down). Maybe someday we will be able to map control surfaces manually. But until then, we can get better results by removing the rudder and putting the elevators as close to centerline as possible. I like your idea of putting the ailerons forward of the CG. That actually has a beneficial effect of pushing the wing up when you pitch up, and pushing the wing down when you pitch down. It's more responsive to your commands. Unfortunately, that means breaking the rule of putting the wing slightly aft of the CG. But if it works, it works.

It might be sound_rocket_hard, or perhaps a mix of the two?

You got a space plane into orbit after only three revisions? That's very impressive! Here are some ideas, which I plan to develop more fully: • remember the KSP drag model is weird (a full fuel tank has more drag than an empty one); • the lift model is weird too (lift is generated by the angle-of-attack, not Bernouli's principle); • center of mass should slightly forward from center of lift; • for tricycles, main landing gear should be just behind center of mass • (for tail-draggers, main landing gear should be just forward of center of mass); • do not use rudders to turn... instead, first bank, then pitch up towards your desired heading ("bank and yank"); • put fuel tanks near the center of mass, so that they do not affect trim as they empty out; • canards give lots of control authority, but cause a tumble if Angle-Of-Attack is too large; • put elevators aft... if they're near the middle they don't help; • remove rudder / aileron control surfaces, only use elevators (because of the way control surface movements are mapped like RCS thrusters); • it takes at least 2 Gs of lift to "un-stick" from the runway. (I'm unsure if this is correct; can anyone verify?) Troubleshooting: • if it roars down the runway into the water, add more lift or remove weight; • if it veers off the runway just before rotation, pull back on the stick (to reduce nosewheel pressure); • if it stalls and tumbles, move the wings back; HarvesteR, the big Kerbal himself, posted some tips and photos here: (The rest of that thread is helpful, too.) I hope these tips help!

This bit is something I've been concerned about. In my own vessels, I've sometimes noticed seemingly inconsistent behavior. Usually the culprit is one "minor" change that I did between flights and then forgot about. But sometimes a connection gets messed up somehow, and causes strange problems in general. I can remedy this by removing and reconnecting the cockpit. That has the effect of re-connecting all the subsequent parts, and often fixes the problem.

So weird. If you get one more screenshot with the latitude, longitude, and altitude, you could have it added to the KGSS map of planetary features.

Usually, they start acting strangely, buy things they don't actually want, spend less time with old friends, only go out with other too-popular ones... oh, you meant for game developers? The extra attention and money ensures they are rewarded for their good work, and increases their confidence for whatever they do next.

Assuming it's the same TARDIS I used a some months ago, it is basically extremely powerful and fuel-efficient. So it's good for getting around to explore if your ships aren't capable yet. The down side of that powerful engine is it's very hard to control the throttle for hovering and landing. Try it again with a well-built stock lander, and you might have an easier time. Alternatively, maybe slap some RCS thrusters and fuel on the TARDIS for fine control?

If I understand correctly, it sounds like you're talking about a plane-change maneuver. There are a bunch of guides, including one I wrote in the KGSS Journal: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/showthread.php/12752-Writing-KGSS-Journal-Volume-I-Edition-1 Briefly, you can correct eccentricity by burning normal or antinormal. If the change is large, it can use a lot of fuel. So it's better to avoid the problem by • closely following the correct heading during ascent; • doing a mid-course correction in the middle of a transfer orbit, when speed is low but the distance is still large; • in the case of returning to Kerbin, altering the ascent trajectory to compensate for latitude. I hope that helps!

Sometimes if parts overlap, they can cause strange rotation forces. It's probably there all the time, but ASAS is able to compensate until you shut off the gimballed engines. Try shutting off ASAS during the ascent to verify this. The only way I know to fix this is to find and relocate the offending part. If all else fails, rebuild the same design from scratch.

I agree about adding a fourth leg. That little bit of redundancy comes in handy for me quite often. Even Apollo's Eagle lander had four legs. Building the lander wide, with stuff on the sides, like Maltesh's footprint example, is the best way to prevent it from tipping over.

This would be really handy for photographers and videographers. If software is controlling the flight, the human can concentrate on composing beautiful images. Can you make it so that the flight computer runs on a detached assembly? Folks have been hoping for a way to do that. For example, deorbit a second-stage booster, then activate a parachute at a certain speed or altitude.