leudaimon

I'm not sure if I did not find this tool, or if it does not exist... Is there some way to set contract orbits (or even more interesting, a manually inserted orbit) as a target? This would make finding the correct launch window so much easier! Also, with the manual orbit parameters, it would allow to launch into the ecliptic in RSS, which is far from trivial. Regards!

@Fluppi Your RO/RP-0 install might be broken. Those are default behaviours in stock KSP, but not in RO/RP-0. It's probably worth trying a reinstall.

@mr_trousers Exactly what a_schack said. An easy way to do this correctly is to use KER and set the moon as target. When your angle to AN or DN is 0º you will be perfectly aligned with the moon's orbit. Such a situation happens once in a day for each node, so it's pretty easy. Just pay attention because your inclination must be different when aligned with the ascending or descending nodes.

@mr_trousers You can use separation motors on the boosters to separate them from the main stage, and steering should be easy if you have a gimballing engine in the main stage. If your first stage is solid rocket only with no gimballing and you have a high TWR (both of which makes things more difficult btw), you can launch your rocket with a little bit of inclination eastwards in the launch pad already, and the gravity turn will start itself automatically. It is not as accurate, and requires some simulations to get right, but it is possible.

By your screenshots, it looks like you are taking too long to start your gravity turn, and then doing it too suddenly. You were still going vertical with a speed of 1100m/s, while the optimal approach is to start a slight turn (something around a pitch of 85º) when you reach 80-100m/s depending on your TWR, and then go prograde. This way, you minimize steering loss of delta-v. A good way to know whether you did the turn right is that you should reach a pitch of 45º when your speed is about 900-1000m/s. Then, you can control your pitch depending on the height you intend to give your orbit and the time you have to apoapsis.

Ok. And is the energy consumption correct for the avionics modules? Because this makes it even harder to have a probe with a positive energy budget in the early game, but also more realistic as the early probes did not have active control during the mission, right?

Greetings, I've raised these issues in the RP-0 thread, and was directed here: - I failed to transmit science using the Explorer 6 probe antenna. While it provides remotetech connection, science appears to be transmitted but does not add points or complete contracts. I found this weird, given everything works fine when I use the Communotron-16. - Finally, I would expect these bugs to be known, but there is a bunch of stuff that work without delay - especially the rcs and thrust controls, allowing for easy total control of the craft. Besides, some stuff don't need a connection to work, such as doing science and turning batteries on/off (this is an easy exploit of insufficient energy for a mission).

@NathanKellOh, good to know. So the "correct" values are for the panels, and the probes are overestimated?

@Qwerzar Without mods beyond the required by RP-0 there are some empty nodes in the advanced game. In the early nodes (up to late 60s and early 70s) the tech tree is mostly completed, with all nodes with content.

@NathanKell Curious... I've been playing with this install from CKAN for some time now and had no other issues... RP-0 has been upgraded in the last updates with no errors. Both branches are clickable, even though not so easily, and have parts in them. I'll try to reinstall anyway to check if it fixes itself. What about the solar panel output inconsistencies I mentioned in the earlier post, maybe it results from some broken install also? Thank you for the response!

By the way, I found some other issues: - my tech tree looks pretty messed in some spots, with nodes overlapping (especially the staged and orbital rocket branches). There are also some orphan nodes, which start in the middle and have no parent node to connect. - I failed to transmit science using the Explorer 6 probe antenna. While it provides remotetech connection, science appears to be transmitted but does not add points or complete contracts. I found this weird, given everything works fine when I use the Communotron-16. - Finally, I would expect these bugs to be known, but there is a bunch of stuff that work without delay - especially the rcs and thrust controls, allowing for easy total control of the craft. Besides, some stuff don't need a connection to work, such as doing science and turning batteries off (this is an easy exploit of insufficient energy for a mission).

I've been looking at the energy outputs of some early solar panels and probes with built-in solar panels, and I believe there must be some problem with the units, as the first panels have a smaller energy output than some of the earliest FASA probes with built-in panels. For some examples: Probes Vanguard 1/2 and GRAB 1: 6/min = 360/h Explorer 6 and Pioneer 5: 9.6/min = 576/h Tiros 1 and Transit-2A: 30/min = 1800/h Panels: ST1: 45.4/h ST2: 1.5/min = 90/h ST3: 9.4/min = 564/h Is this expected? Looking at sizes, the probes have very small (or apparently invisible) panels, and I would expect their output to be an order of magnitude smaller than the first dedicated panels, not higher.

Btw, I tried that sometimes, but with closed interstage fairings it doesn't work (it fails and says that the engine doesn't work while stowed). Is there any way to have a structurally strong rocket and use hot staging? Because if I use regular structural decouplers with larger rockets they tend to break apart.

Ullage has no relationship with your speed, but acceleration. Use a couple of separation motors in your second stage, and fire your main engine right after the separation motors, while the motors are still firing.

Ow, OK! Good that it is a known issue, and that the cause was found already. Thank you for the quick reply!

I have an issue that I am not sure whether it is a problem with KER, or some of the mods in Realism Overhaul and RP-0. Delta-V and other statistics are measured correctly at the VAB, but during flight they are seriously messed up, with the current stage always showing as 0, and the other stages showing numbers that vary wildly during the flight. TWRs and burning times also seem to have similar problems. Any ideas if a fix is possible?

Not really. In the beginning you should get only sounding rocket and x-plane contracts besides the "launch a satellite" and "first flight".

As far as I understand it, any parts that are in a node, and don't have any labels that state it "Non-RO", "Non RP-0" or "RP-0 no cost" are properly balanced for gameplay, regardless of the mod they come from.

yeah, that's why I told him to get only the tree.cfg file from the current release after installing the development version. The world first fix is not on tree.cfg, so he should be safe using it from a previous release.

Step 6: download the latest release version step 7: get the tree.cfg file from it and paste on the RP-0 folder inside GameData

Problem is already solved in the development version, world firsts were removed. Although, it is still to be rolled out in the proper release of version 0.41. If you want, you can follow some instructions on posts above to run the development version.

Are you getting enough propellant?

Nice! Actually there is a working preview-release version already compiled in github (v0.41). AFAIK it's similar to the master branch and works fine on 1.0.5.

Please refer to the posts above from @Phineas Freak and myself, they explain how you need to get the tree.cfg file if you are installing from source. You basically get it from older releases or compile it from source tree.ymll @NathanKell could give further details, but this is currently a known bug that was not solved yet. What I've been doing is editing the save file to remove the money I earn. Nothing to be done for science and prestige though (at least not as straightforward to someone who doesn't know so well how the save file works like myself).

Thank you for the response @NathanKell! Yea, the way you put it, it makes sense the way it is... I just thought that being so light they give a very clear advantage over the sputnik, but I can see you guys considered that.