JoeSchmuckatelli

EDIT: I closed the whole game down and restarted - now I'm back to playing. Moderators can delete if desired. Panicked OP Starts: I think I've ended my career and found a bug. Unless someone can tell me how to get it reset. I flew a suborbital mission then checked the tracking station for recoverable debris. There was a booster floating in space. I double-clicked it and the game took me to a view of space. The game autosaved. Now I can't do anything. I cannot 'revert flight', I cannot esc. back to the space center (I can go to main menu). I reloaded my game and I'm in the same view. There's literally nothing I can do, but look around and warp time. Esc. menu won't take me out of it and back to my career - just main menu, reload and back to the same stuck view of space, I had my best career going - and would hate to have to restart... literally hours of play lost.

I'm trying to stack missions and ferry passengers as well as conduct science - but my reentry vehicle looks dangerously long with the two passenger attachment and a Science Jr. below the capsule. If I put the Science Jr. on below my heat shield, do the science then drop it before reentry... do I lose the value of the science?

Figured this out - after testing a rocket full of fuel... Sigh. On a lighter note - I figured out my suborbital reentry problem. Where before I was going effectively straight up and straight down (and dying), I managed to create a shallow entry profile and got not only my pilot, but a couple of tourists safely back onto the planet. Hope I can remember what I did tomorrow - but now it's time to sleep.

Thanks. I've always waited a bit as it just seemed prudent, but didn't know if I lost speed doing so.

Just a bit of idle curiosity: should I fire the second stage immediately after the last stage runs out of fuel, or give it a second or two?

This is good to know. In retrospect, I just did not have the lift available to adequately do the test - unlocking the next level of rocketry gave me what I needed to get to that altitude - with a thumper.

The really odd thing is I feel kind of tense getting ready to test something I think is going to work. And then, in the middle of the flight the phone rings. I keep telling myself, it's a video game, you can pause it and save it - but IDonWanna! I let my kid and his friends play sandbox - and they're enjoying smashing rockets into things - but I'm trying to keep my little bobble heads alive. And that isn't always easy.

... is unbelievable. It's invaded my life. I've been playing less than a week - and when I'm not playing, I'm mulling over problems in my head. I'm just an average gamer, not a pilot, or even an engineer, and I'm obsessed with this already. Playing career mode, and solving problems when I don't know what I'm doing is... fun (satisfying? ...don't know quite the correct word to use here). For the last day and a half I've been trying to hit the contract where I have to test a thumper at suborbital altitude over 180,000 m. Figured all I had to do was build a big enough rocket to get to that elevation, then light the thumper and aim for home. First set of attempts never got out of the atmosphere - rockets spun all over the place. Revert and redesign. Next set got up to space, but not quite to the altitude required. I could get to the elevation - but not with a live thumper to test. Doing this, I tried to fulfill other contracts along the way - but my Kerbonauts kept burning up on reentry. Shifted focus to try to keep the pod from burning up and fulfill a contract to test the ablation shield - and it dawns on me, I need to control my speed. Finally used a rocket to slow down my reentry to ensure I hit the 'between x velocity and y velocity" requirement. It worked. Kerbils lived. Lightbulb. So, in my Kerbil Kar I drove around performing tests until I could get some bigger rockets - they got me to 190,000 - then used the thumper to slow down (not aim back at the planet) - and lo, and behold; contract complete. Another rocket to control reentry speed and my pilot walked away from the test. Stupid me forgot to put any science gathering devices on that flight - and later on, I'll refly the mission to gather data. But damnit - I did it. And the game keeps calling to me.

I have confirmed it to be an editor problem - i.e. the VAB applied a totally different COL to the plane than it had in the SPH, probably during the auto-rotation after loading the SPH file. I took the plane out of the SPH, managed to get it up in the air and flight tested it - it flew about like I expected. However - when launched from the VAB... flies like a rock with a tail.

I think it's the last editor applied COL. Haven't been able to test fromS PH, but I have seen the same thingh appen to a different plaane. Stupid phone induced text errors.

I think this is what I think happened. The COL, which had been close to and behind the unfueled COM shifted in the VAB after I rotated it. The automatic nature of it made me suspect the VAB was assigning the lift to the thud rocket, but it sounds like it'sa 90 degree snap to verticali n the VAB thing... I just clicked the plane and it went from horizontal to vertical in an instant.

I built a spaceplane in the SPH that looked like it should fly. Put 'Thud' type engines on it so I could maneuver in space. With all fuel removed from the rocket engines, the COM and COL looked good for atmospheric flight. Plan was to use rocket boosters to get to space, the thuds to help line me up on my trajectory, and then a long glide path back down to my destination. However, once in the VAB, my COL shifted to a point near the Thud rockets - well behind and above my COL (were I in level flight). You can imagine my flight char... okay, there were no flight characteristics - the plane didn't fly. I got it into space, and only killed a few fish when I crashed into the ocean. Is there a rational reason behind this - or is this a quirk of the game? I figured that once the Thuds were out of fuel, and the plane back in the atmosphere - I figured the COL would shift to where it showed me it was in the SPH with all fuel empty from the rockets...

Please, don't use your 'logic' on me. I am convinced if I keep building rockets with planes on top - it will eventually work. Now into my 23d hour of building testing and crashing 'plane on top of rocket designs' I am bound to stumble on that one soon! In other news, I continue to invest in the lottery!

No, no mods yet. I'm wondering if it did not have something to do with reverting the flight. I just don't know - it gets frustrating. I get 3-4 way symmetry options during the build to crash phase, then suddenly I don't on the same craft, in the see-if-I-can--tweak-this-to-crash-later phase.. I've been building my spaceplanes in the SPH to see how they will perform after separation - then trying to mount them (much comical-ness) in a manner that will let me get really high, then glide for a long way. I'm literally very early in career mode with only the basic aircraft parts available. Still, having some successes.

No screen. I literally cannot select any symmetry settingso other than single or parallel... They don't show up.

Whenever I load a spaceplane into the VAB - the available symmetry options go wonky after a while. Trying to put a three engine rocket to propel my plane into the upper atmosphere - but I keep getting only two or one point of symmetry available. This is even after saving the plane in the VAB and having had three point symmetry available - it disappeared after a failed flight and the revert. Ideas?

Well - the problem is getting there in a timely fashion. Certainly, I can sit in front of the monitor for the fifteen to twenty minutes it would take to fly - presuming my squatty little plane has enough juice to get there. But whenever I try to speed up time, my plane gets all wonky - even with stability on and me being in essentially level flight at a constant speed. Something about hitting the period changes the plane's behavior. I just don't have the science available in career mode to keep upgrading enough to make a big enough plane for this to make sense. Guess I have to go back to rocketry.

Oops - well I went to the rocket launch pad and they showed up - on the far side of the planet as well. Pfft. Still haven't gotten into orbit - looks like my little jet is in for a long flight.

Just started playing a few days ago - have built a jet I can actually fly and land, and have been doing the 'fly here get a crew report' missions - except now I have an active mission that will not show markers. I do have active markers (on the other side of the planet) for a completely different mission, so it's only the markers for this specific mission that are missing. Ideas on how to get them to show up? (I've quit the game and restarted and the missing markers are persistent). Thanks.