bewing

Well, no. It's not nearly that simple. The thrust does increase with speed, but it's a complex curve. The thrust does decrease with altitude, but that's a complex curve, too. What ends up happening is that each engine and design has a sweet spot altitude where you get the maximum thrust vs. drag. And that's the best altitude for going supersonic. It may very well be in the 8km to 10km range for your plane. But your drop tests were exactly prograde. And that's not what happens with a real spaceplane, and that's exactly the problem with MK2. As soon as they get the tiniest bit off prograde, the drag triples.

They're not supposed to. What version of the game are you running, and are you running mods? But yes, you are definitely running into a drag problem. That's exactly what happens with a spaceplane when you add just a little too much drag ... suddenly you can't get past mach 1. Did you maybe used to have incidence on the wings, and then perhaps remove the incidence (by accident) when you attached the droptanks? (BTW, you don't need fuel ducts with the drop tanks -- just go into the decoupler's action menu and click the "allow crossfeed" button.) Keep in mind that MK2 may be pretty, but it's the absolute worst formfactor for a spaceplane to try to get into orbit, because it has much higher drag than MK1, MK3, or 2.5m. No. I've seen it make a difference of 5 m/s or so in top speed, but "crucial" isn't the proper description. Oh god no. Stubbornness is pretty much a required trait for spaceplane design. You need to expect to put in several hundred hours of design time, if you even start to optimize your craft. You might get some benefit out of Aerogav's MK2 spaceplane tutorial: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/165435-basic-mk2-spaceplane-guide

The fact that you failed gives you your answer.

I saw the problem you describe in an older version of the game, but it got fixed. What version are you using? Can you post the craft file (if it's stock)? What CB are you landed on?

There are many ways to get science. As 5th Horseman said -- the best method is to unlock science instruments and then take them around the system and perform experiments in new places. This should allow you to progress your research. As James Kerman said, part test contracts always give you the parts you need to complete the contract. Beyond that -- the way contracts work is that as you complete them, you gain reputation. As you gain reputation, you get new types of contracts offered to you.

Nah, the important thing with the klaw is your impact angle. Speed doesn't matter. You have to be very close to 90 degrees to the surface for it to grab. And there is nothing that prevents multiple grabs on the same asteroid, so that's not the problem. You might have a problem with those drills, though. It looks to me like they don't have enough room to extend fully.

But the deltaV difference doing it that way is only about 40% at the most, and it's a lot less controllable, and it requires a lot of microfiddling with maneuver nodes which is mighty annoying.

To get into a polar orbit, you want to start burning when you cross the equator. You can see exactly when you are about to cross the equator by watching the latitude in Kerbnet. So that's when you start burning. You want to be locked Normal or Antinormal. As you burn, your Normal/Antinormal icon will rotate around your navball. You stop burning when your heading gets to either 90 or 270, depending on whether you are Normal or Antinormal. You don't need any markers, and you don't need any reference ship.

Assuming a reasonably optimal transfer window, 960 for the initial burn, 10 for a midcourse correction, 700 for the capture burn -- should leave you just a bit over 100 left. So "just barely". But don't plan on even a single plane change after you arrive.

One of the SAS modes is called "Maneuver Hold". That column is if the core has that mode. Yes, you can easily stick an RA-15 on one of those tiny cores with no issues.

The relay antennas only require EC when they are actively transmitting a science report that the current craft generated. Otherwise, they require zero. A HECS2 is 3.0 per minute, so you are a factor of 60 too high on that one. Unless you hibernate it, and then it falls by another factor of 500. And yes, the solar panels recharge all the batteries on the craft, including the probe core. So really, a HECS2 is probably way more probe core than you really need for these little relays -- unless you plan to use them to look for anomalies (then they are pretty good).

You'll have to ask @Arsonide.

Each of the 14 CBs has one randolith, in addition to the permanent ones. Permanent anomalies: Kerbin 7, Mun 8, Minmus 1, Duna 3, Vall 1, Bop 2, Tylo 1.

The important setting is in your Advanced tab in your Difficulty Options: "Require Signal for Control". If it's off, then you can always steer using SAS modes (provided you have some electricity). If it's on, then your craft becomes a brick once your CommNet signal strength goes to zero. One easy way to check your orbital period is to create a maneuver node. Write down the time to the node. Then right click the node and click the "+1 orbit" button. Then subtract the two times. Or, take the time to your Ap, and the time to your Pe, subtract, and then multiply by two.

With the default settings for the game, when you lose communications, you lose the ability to steer your craft with WASD. (Only SAS modes can be used to steer.) No, the Communotron 16 will not reach KSC from Duna with a T3 tracking station. It'll barely reach to Minmus. For setting up a spaced relay network, don't look at the altitudes -- they don't matter. Look at the total periods of the orbits -- you need to get them very close. You can land without a CommNet signal. I prefer to have an OKTO2 to do it, so I have "radial out" SAS mode available. But your engine is either Full or Zero thrust without connectivity, so you need to plan for that if your engine is overpowered (reduce your engine thrust while you have signal).

No, nothing has changed. One ship can complete all the contracts -- provided you don't dock anything old to your craft (such as a refueling tanker).

Welcome to the forums. Clicking the "Run Test" button in the part options should always work for an engine, if all the conditions in the contract have green check marks. In general, the tricky thing about that particular contract is that the "speed" criteria is always measured in Surface mode, and your navball usually automatically changes to Orbital mode (with a different speed value) at that altitude. However, watching the green checkmarks is exactly the right thing to do. They always tell you when you can complete the contract. So, unfortunately, all I can tell you initially is that it sounds like you are doing everything right. Getting all the green checkmarks and then clicking "Run Test" should definitely complete the contract -- provided that your craft actually has a Hammer engine on it (and not some other engine). Getting a picture of your screen is a PITA for consoles, I know perfectly well. But if you can manage it during your attempt at the test -- maybe we can spot something small that's going wrong.

I like the survey missions myself. Especially since you can often combine them with stopping at biome-rich zones and picking up a few hundred extra science points. There are players who are very short on time, and they tend to want to be flying rocketships around. But for those of us with lots of time to spare -- exploring Kerbin is just as fun as exploring Minmus.

I assume what you want it to show is Pe, Ap, and maneuvers for both vessels at the same time? The easiest way to do that in map mode is to temporarily target the other vessel. Then it will show all info for both vessels. If you actually switch the vessel with focus, then it will show Pe, Ap, and maneuvers for the current vessel plus any target of that vessel.

I think the basic problem is that you're not coming in perfectly straight. That technique works OK when you're docking something small -- but it looks like your craft is really massive. I'd say -- come in to about 3 to 5 meters. Then stop. Realign laterally so that all your target icons are on the central crosshairs. Then go forward.

There are lots and lots of tricks to making a rocket that flies nice and straight. Basically, we need a picture of it -- but I'm sure you will get lots of suggestions for improvements, and important design notes that you didn't know before.

The game does not load the entire terrain of the planet into memory at all times. It loads a couple of kilometers of terrain around your location, and then loads more of it as you move in a particular direction. If you move very fast in some direction, you will always eventually exceed the speed that your computer can load new terrain. If you want to increase your personal limit, you need a faster computer.

Version 1.2.0 as I recall.

I'll try to answer independently from 5th Horseman, just in order to confuse you more with slightly conflicting information. Yes and no. The game forms an attachment from the new part to the CoM of the part you attach it to. Forces on each part are communicated to each other through this attachment. The attachment acts as a radial arm that converts a force into a torque in a physically correct way. The game is designed specifically to give you great flexibility in building your craft for functional or aesthetic purposes. It is designed to model your craft as accurately as conveniently possible, no matter how you tweak it using the editing tools. No and yes. The farther you move a part away from the CoM of its parent part, the larger that any resulting torque from an impacting force will be. Each attachment has a maximum torque for failure. But you aren't supposed to be running your craft into things, so you aren't supposed to be getting impact forces on your craft, so parts are not supposed to fall off in general -- unless you have accomplished something in KSP called an "oops". Besides torques, no, a part that has been moved/rotated works just like normal. Yes, the angles and aerodynamics are affected. But it is in fact necessary to rotate some parts (the communotron 16s antenna for example) to minimize drag. Or to give wings a built-in angle of attack. Or to rotate or move other parts around in your craft to make them accessible from the ground or when you are on a ladder or standing on top of the craft, etc. etc. So "misaligned" might not be an accurate mental concept. Yes, behavior and control input can change -- but it's mostly very logical and consistent and physically accurate about how it changes. So whether it's "different than expected" depends on your expectations now, doesn't it? The green ones are called "stack nodes". Many parts only attach on stack nodes. All other parts are called "radially attachable" parts. You can generally stick them on anywhere you like. There is a button in the editor that looks like either a hexagon or a circle. Have you ever tried clicking that into "circle" mode? In hexagon mode it's called "angle snap" -- in angle snap mode, the editor will place radially attached parts on exact angles for your convenience. In circle mode, you can stick radial parts anywhere you want. I suspect not. There are very few mods that change the behavior of the craft editor. And you can do amazingly crazy stuff with the stock editor. So anything crazy you've seen in the editor is probably still pure stock. What you are seeing is probably the results of buttons and functions that you have not tried using yet. He didn't move them very far, so no they won't break off more easily. He rotated them, so their aerodynamic drag will change somewhat. Otherwise, they will operate normally. Also, keep in mind that fairings, cargo bays, service modules, and service bays can shield parts inside them from aerodynamic forces. So even if you edit some part into some wacky attitude or position, you can still prevent any aerodynamic problems on that part with a fairing, etc.