Blaarkies

It was LAPSES(I never knew the term before though). I had some close encounters though, since i need to turn the plane around and slow down before the dropped tower got out of physics range(and deleted from existence)...this together with high altitude mountain ranges made my control surfaces less responsive than desired. So i used an mk3 sized cargo plane(very short though) with upside down cargo bay, and the "towers" was really just a Rockomax Adapter 2, with a few stack batteries, solar panels, probe core, antenna and parachute. But i did place tiny detachable rover wheels on the adapter, so i can drive up to the absolute highest peak. This is dropped by staging(decoupler and parachute simultaneously, some tweaking on parachute necessary). Fly slow and low at the mountain base, "climb" towards the peaks at very low altitude and then stage. My plan was to have a super comm tower at the poles, even docking-port assembly to build a 100m tower on its side and lift it...with boosters of course. This by itself should have given a permanent connection to planets by itself, and a few stray satellites should have covered eclipses and the like. It never got fulfilled though because of the Northern-mountains-bug

Do you mean "on the surface"? I tried something similar, although rotated by 90' , i aimed at getting a KSC -> North pole connection using only communication towers on mountains...dropped by cargo plane. It was fun, I got all of them in place(9 towers) but there was one i could not place...just south of the northern polar cap, there is an unaccessable mountain range due to a crash-to-desktop bug. That was a real bummer

Its not Kerbin that is different...it is the "current orbit parent body" that is different. You get the exact same results in orbit around Eve, where you cannot single click focus/target Eve. The only reason it seems to mostly happen around Kerbin is because...well we are mostly around Kerbin

1. Map view > Zoom out until you see other planets > Single-click on Kebin > Focus 2. Map view > Press Tab > Press Tab a few more times to cycle focus from Kerbol, Moho, Eve, Gilly, Kerbin, Mun...etc(Shift+Tab to reverse cycle !WATCH THE THROTTLE!) You cannot "set target" to the planet you are orbiting(or even if your current editable maneuver node is in its SOI)...it probably sounds stupid to target the body you are orbiting, but for many slingshots i wish i could do it. This makes double slingshots from Kerbin so impossibly hard

This is good. As long as those circles are persistent(don't want to set them every time I de-orbit). But taking "distance/15 hours for you to have access to your crew, craft" is not going to help...remember the time warp buttons? In KSP time really has no value(small contracts have +4year deadlines, crew don't need life support)...only a Jool->Eelo slingshot is a very rare timed event

Yes, that with good gimbal engines that is how you do fin-less rockets. Be careful though, your ascent profile is too steep, you will need to lower thrust...but thrust is also your control authority.

But how would you test VTOLs? Some VTOLs designed for Duna uses rocket engines to lift-off vertically

I agree, it feels like micro-management. Except for [1.0.5] Snacks! Kerbal simplified life support v0.3.5. One resource called "snacks" is added to every crew-able part(pods, cockpits, hitchhiker,...). every day, every kerbal will eat 1 snacks. If there are no snacks for him to eat, you will lsoe some reputation...everyday that he goes hungry. A Hichhiker-habitat can last one kerbal 800days, thats about a to-Duna-and-return mission. This forces you to build ships with enough living space for those interplanetary missions. In stock it feels wrong to waste extra mass for luxury to get a kerbal to duna...instead of a single MK1 capsule(which feels even more wrong)

Sorry for necro, but I had this same problem for a while and now finally found a good solution. 1. If your craft is a "capsule" shape, with heatshields underneath you will be fine. I just landed my new Eve ascent vehicle, it is a short tower, single stack, ranging from 3.75m up to the thinnest part. Anyway, to heatshield it properly I had to place 3.75m heatshields in a hexagonal honeycomb placement(1 in center, 6 in symmetry slightly tilted)...it was the most uneventful re-entry ever 2. Don't know if you hate mods or not, at least these are very light weight. -Use this: [1.0.5] Trajectories v1.4.5 (2015-12-05) : atmospheric predictions . It shows a new white trajectory from any point where your vacuum trajectory touches the atmosphere...it shows where you will go accounting for atmosphere. I routinely land SSTO rockets in the KSC binome area with this. -Docking in ~double gravity environment is hard, look into this: EVA Resource Transfer - v3.0 . It gives a single extra part, looks like the stock fuel pipe. Place on of these on your fuel depot. Thats all, now you can EVA with an engineer to create a pipe link to any other craft. Right click the pipe to transfer your specified amounts and types of fuel. The depot and your science-habitat remain two separate craft with this link(you have to press "[" or "]" to actually do stuff on the other craft)

FIX: -> F5 and then hold down F9(quicksave, quickload) Sorry for necroing this year old thread, but I feel that new players need to know/find this before they get frustrated I got this on medium docking ports, v1.0.5 1028. So I sent a 110ton spaceplane to orbit with a 2.5m payload(connected with medium docking ports, onto its HubMax cube) Once at the station, I connect it and realize I could do something useful while the spaceplane is up there...like bringing down my crippled Duna lander(for the "craft landed on Duna science bonus") As I try to dock it, I find that it could "balance" and "stand" still on the plane's docking port while the plane is accelerating with RCS...did not get the slightest magnetic pull, and undocked it from the interplanetary ship like 5 minutes ago

Terminal velocity, are you following it? It sounds weird at first, but you want to go upwards at the same speed as your terminal velocity at that point(slow in deep atmosphere, faster in thin atmosphere)...this stops you from fighting too much drag, while also going fast enough so that you dont fight gravity that long. Anyway, right-click on your SRB inside the editor(where you build the craft). See the green slider "Thrust Limiter"? Tune that down some until your TWR(Thrust / Weight) is less than 2...you will need to count and calculate this per stage(or get the KER mod, it give all the info engineers want) Now, adding more SRB this way will get you further into orbit, because you are not overspeeding in thick atmosphere because of them

The "halfway to anywhere" does not apply well to places outside low orbit, like somewhere in asteroid belt. It costs a lot of DV when burning in deep space(somewhere interplanetary) to get anywhere, just because you longer have Oberth on you side...but a space colony "near" a gravity is really a good idea Escaping in retrograde from Luna orbit you can swing close by Earth with little DV, already having a trans-lunar orbit...it is a lot easier getting Earth escape velocity at that point. Getting back from interplanetary voyages, you can exploit gravity assists from Luna.

This Is there a way to copy the HX end piece, change its texture to have some some glass-like color and/or bump map for the surface between those structural edges? It already looks like a decent, fitting command pod...except for not commanding anything I don't care about IVA...yes they look cool, I lost myself within the Hypersonic S2 cockpit for hours, just crashing and flat-spinning because I was busy flipping all the light switches and stuff inside. But in the end, I have spent less than 1% of B9 flight time in IVA. Just to have an actual fitting command deck on HX motherships would be so awesome

No not dock, but rather strut them together, without the actual strut part. I realize this could become difficult if the modules need to be added to parts, since they are written into the persistence/craft files. What I meant is, whatever is strengthening parts relative to each other because of the link made by a strut, should be added automatically when surplus green nodes match and align properly. Imagine building this: MK1 capsule Tri-coupler 3x RT-10 Tri-coupler(upside-down) stuff... Starting traditionally with the Command pod and working down, we find a dilemma when placing the upside-down Tri-coupler. When a newbie builds this, they don't see the problem...we expect the 3 nodes to connect to each SRB. Only after a wobbly launch do we find that only one is connected. To counter this, we add two struts: each from the position of the surplus node to its corresponding SRB. That is what I mean. (No claims are made that any person will pursue manufacturing of the above mentioned vehicle. No Kerbals were harmed in the making of this product. Buy now and save up to 100%, or your money back!)

This reminds me of some documentary about Curiosity's landing, that Mars' atmosphere is too thin to be useful, but just enough so that you cannot ignore it. Back on topic: The orbital trajectory predictions get way jumpy/flickery when I plan them: - 100+ days in the future - Chain up 4+ maneuver nodes It gets to the point where I cannot even place a node at PEof a highly elliptical orbit. So I do the fuel station near Minmus thing, using highly efficient tugs and slight Mun slingshots to get fuel up to Minmus cheaply. Then launch my interplanetary ships almost empty to that station, fill up, then plan maneuvers: - Retrograde burn to drop PE to 70km. - Prograde burn at PE to achieve escape I adjust the first Retro burn node so that the timing and final escape angle matches the trajectory needed for reaching say Eve. The thing is, that second node is really, really jumpy. If I manage to actually place it at PE, it starts moving up to 10 minutes forwards/backwards(flicker back and forth) when I add dv prograde. Is there anyway to get around this? ...besides re evaluating maneuvers after every burn

But what if it did not have multiple parents? What I mean is, keep tree structure as is, where green nodes add children to parent parts...but when a specific parent has extra blue nodes, then a child's extra blue nodes may attach to those, as long as the child green node is actually connected to the parent green node. (Blue nodes are only possible if the green nodes are actually attached to each other, and blue nodes have no influence on the mapping of the tree)

Pilots can't reset material/goo experiments But since SAS or Prograde Aim is a very low priority for "rovers", a scientist will do great. Also, how many binomes are there at KSC? I know of the big ones (Runway, LaunchPad, Each building)...but i found that every tracking station dish is unique binome, as well as some small structure at RnD

That sounds suspiciously like the control point switching automatically upon docking. Did you try right-clicking your command capsule(or probe core) and selecting "Control from here"? Always check you navball vs actual craft orientation relative to the planet, if they don't agree with each other you had better investigate. When you have an engine facing backwards, MJ will calculate that after a full burn, you will be going 1000m/s faster...in the oposite direction

I think the tiny little Oscar fuel tank has surface attachment? Anyway I just use anything similar to the tiny fuel tanks, that can also attach radially...because the BZ-52 is higher up in the tech tree It's stupid that probe cores can only attach to stack nodes. I never use the MPL...anymore.

That is going to be awesome for the first few times, building test flight specific craft to do this cheaply...but at some point it will become grinding. Unlock a new part -> stick it to this tester craft -> watch the new piece fail -> only then start building the mothership that needs this piece. However, that is kind of what happens in real life, and if i understand correctly it only needs a single flight...that is a lot of entertainment for very little effort, a good idea

But doing this while in flight or at space center is a great way to gamble with your savegame's state of corruption. I do the "Alt + F4" from the "Mun scene" menu, it protects my save and skips at least the last 3 clicks

Haven't snacks been massless for over a year now? And the mod Snacks! that actually uses snacks, stores them inside crew compartments only(MK1 capsule, Hitchhiker, Cabins,...etc all get some amount of snacks as an extra resource) It does fit nicely with stock though

So what happens after a few hours in Easy mode, when a player realizes he is getting the hang of it and wants to build bases and stations? He is going to regret not choosing Harder from the very start, because now he has to start all over again, after he sees his friend doing interesting tourism contracts

If you build a plane with a long wingspan, and pull up to fast out of a dive then your wings easily snap off. They don't explode or spasm around, they just break apart. Looking at the g-forces at the moment of failure, this seams realistic: -it's hard to pull 4g+ with a "Cesna" style plane without losing your wings -it's hard to pull 9g+ with a "F15" style plane without losing your wings Struts could help out a lot, and this "aerodynamic failure" happens in rockets as well (if you point 10deg away from prograde, then the rocket might snap in half). To counter this, FAR gives you a adjustable slider in each wings(in editor) right click menu that strengthens the wing, at the cost of extra weight to that wing. Anyway, i'll admit that I turn off "aerodynamic failure"(at space center, click on FAR icon, uncheck "aerodynamic failure"). No excuses about keyboard not being analog or anything, but because unpredictable stuff happens to big missions...and also, it's very kerbal to do a loop right of the runway ...but you have to promise to never touch the wing strength sliders then

It works, it's a great mod. Remember getting multiple crew reports on 1 mission, when you have to EVA, take data, then return again....none of that anymore. If you can do it by clicking on stuff, then this mod has already done it in a blink of an eye (on 1.0.5 64bit with lots of other such mods, no problems)