suicidejunkie

I've also used the small ISRU in a "KAA Truck" probe rover. It has one full scale drill, and a probe core, and is driven out to to the west coast or wherever a spaceplane has come down short. One mk1 fuelselage of LF to get the plane airborne and to the runway for full return value is all it needs, and then it spends the next 50+ days filling back up until there is another spaceplane accident.

I wonder if it might be worthwhile in interstellar mod too; Having a big heavy automated reactor with beamed power equipment travelling along the route to the planet. It would swing fairly close to where the ships will be burning in each direction, while still returning to kerbin SOI for a quick servicing and refuelling occasionally, which only requires a light one-kerb shuttle as far as I know. On the downside, I'm not sure how much the location/distance matters, and the tech might obsolete itself too quickly.

I agree with that. I'm just wondering why are you restricting the conversation to Stock KSP? It seems to me the goal is to find a use for them, and assuming stock KSP is not even trying.

Why are Stock and 'Useful' actually requirements? The OP is using hexcans of lifesupport supplies in the screenshots, after all. A lot of KSP things I see on the internet are done for the spectacle rather than just for serious business games.

Version 1.0.5 build id = 01028 2015-11-10_18-03-24 Fresh install, no mods. (Save file migrated from a modded game) http://imagemodserver.duckdns.org/nick/tempstuff/hardinfo_report.zip This isn't a game-stopper for me, but it definitely is a weird physics glitch I want to report. I was driving my low tech science plane around on the eastern coast of the desert continent, and using the wheel brakes to keep my speed down. Then I reached the edge of a grass polygon and moved to a flatter area. Except now I was accelerating out of control, up to 50m/s at which point I couldn't hold it and the plane flipped out and crashed. I reloaded and tried again, and discovered that the acceleration was appearing only when I hit the brakes on some fraction of hill polygons. The savegame below has a science plane out on the continent to the west of KSC facing uphill. http://imagemodserver.duckdns.org/nick/tempstuff/KSP_uphill_turbo_brakes.zip 1) Switch to the science plane. (quicksaved in the plane to start) 2) Throttle up to 100% 3) Release the brake and head uphill. 4) As you reach between the flags (Titled "No stopping zone"), cut the throttle to zero. 5) Wait for your speed to decrease as jets spool down, then activate the brakes. 6) Observe speedometer start to rapidly increase. Note: Releasing the brakes will allow the craft to slow down again due to gravity. 7) Catapult into the sky with brakes on. 8) Land safely for style points. It is as if the brakes are applying a huge negative torque, but only on some ground polygons; they operate normally most of the time, so the way to survive is to pitch up and get off the ground, then circle around to a hill that is less Kerbophobic.

I think the point still stands. If you can find yourself something (anything) with sufficient mass relative to the things meeting it, and also want it to be traveling frequently between the two locations, then it is worth while. If you can't come up with any such ideas, then it isn't worth it for your space program. While a lifesupport mod would add some obvious bits (and totally be *in-game*, if not stock), people don't need mods to make giant space stations, and a giant cycling "station" would be even more awesome than one that sits in orbit.

That math doesn't check out... An arbitrarily high orbit reduces the occlusion of the sun to an arbitrarily low time per orbit; for extremely high kerbin orbits, the mun will block the sun just as much as kerbin will. A maximally tight polar orbit will get you 50% sunlight, except on two orbits per year when you're face on to the sun. A wider polar orbit will leave you in the sun for additional days per year. For the same orbital distance, the polar orbit will get you a little more sun on average, but I doubt it is worth the extra dV or the much more restricted launch windows required to rendezvous.

The island runway was the first node of the ground-based Kerizon Wireless network I've been deploying. Although it won't be able to provide coverage in the middle of the oceans, it will provide internet service to all the land-based Kerbals, and support the construction of a deep space network with zero drift when bigger antennas are available. Bill has wrecked so many low tech planes landing on mountains to deploy the cell towers, but he's gotten the job done each time, and collected some science on the way.

How much benefit do you actually see from the refining in orbit in regards to the fuel choices? I've never seen the advantage, but maybe I'm just looking at a scale that's too large? 3 popsicle tankers, and 6 popsicle fuel depots might just swamp any fluctuations in usage.

My Jeb is running a 3 star spaceplane taxi service to the orbital fuel depot while waiting for the big Duna mining mission to finish KCT construction. On the last descent, he came in hot, forgot about the nose retros, and clipped the light on the end of the runway at 50m/s. He was fine of course, and rescued the 2 RTGs that had broken loose in the cargo bay, recovering 50% of the craft's value. So right at the moment he's on vacation waiting for another spaceplane to finish construction.

Two things to add to that: 1) A wider variety of happiness depletion modifiers 2) A bonus for being landed, possibly scaled to the gravity. Happiness could then be recovered using a decent habitation module on the mun, but require a really palatial one in orbit. As to experience gaining, would it be possible to compromise somewhat? EG: 1) Returning to Kerbin gets stars as now. 2) If XP exceeds twice the requirement, then the star is gained in flight. That would mean you can get 1 star from either orbiting and returning, or you could also get 1 star by visiting mun without going home. A minmus flag-planter would get one star in flight and gain their second star after returning home. Or if you do a minmus flag + solar orbit + munar flyby, you'd have 2 stars in flight, and gain the 3rd after you land on kerbin.

Experienced scientists could gain 'SAS' (Science Auto Sense); IE: Toggle the thermometer to auto, and Bob the Science Guy will automatically take readings when you get to a new biome for which a sample isn't already on the ship and/or is worth more than what is already in the thermometer. Also good would be to automatically take the appropriate readings when you're in a contract zone.

A lot of early contracts suck, but there are a lot more good ones if you are willing to build a plane or two instead of going pure rockets. And it opens up a lot more if you're willing to build hybrids like in the screenshot earlier in the thread. Reading the fine print is really critical. I accidentally accepted a contract for a rescue in Kerbin orbit. This joker was (is) stranded out past mun orbit, because I'd had Jeb kick a rocket just barely up to 250km for high science. He'll be waiting a while, but now there's an extra push in the space center for bigger rockets.

My career mode heavy rocket policy has evolved into using three stage designs. First, a set of thumper SRBs for the initial kick up to 250-300m/s, and then drop off. This is done vertically to avoid damage. After separation, gravity turn may begin. Second is three mainsails with 2 popsicles of fuel each. With payload, these start out <1 TWR, but I don't want to bang against the sound barrier anyways (the payload is typically terrible aerodynamically, but the vehicle remains subsonic until that is not a problem). As they burn down and atmo thins, speed picks up naturally. Originally it was intended to put 30 inert tons in orbit, but I usually have at least 60 tons on the top (image is 160t payload), so now the popsicles drop into booster bay for 85% recovery. The payloads themselves do the orbital insertion using their efficient space drives, typically poodles and terrier/909s. Burning payload fuel to reach orbit isn't a concern for me; they often launch with excess empty tankage anyways, and can either fill up at the orbital depot, or go straight to the Minmus refinery. Basically, everything that touches space stays there or lands (hopefully) in one piece.

What if you were to put a second beacon closer to the runway and lower, or a bit further and higher? That way you just need to vertically align the red and green brackets of the targeted and untargeted objects.

Drills too tall; Minmus miner rodeo.

I didn't in any way mean that to be impolite. Sorry. I was just trying to guess where the confusion came in. The screenshots and comments are showing the pod accelerating from 300 UP to 301m/s as it falls from 3000m to 1500m altitude. I don't know where I went wrong there. Are the screenshots I attached working for other people? I did recently create a shortcut to make starting KSP faster, and that would be about when I started having capsule problems. ... Looks like that was indeed the solution; a half-full hammer punts a capsule up around 20km, and the terminal velocity on the way down is now sensible. 13km = 305m/s 10km = 290m/s 7.5km = 270m/s 5km = 260m/s 1km = 220m/s This is much more survivable than a constant 300m/s all the way down. Thanks!

There are no heat shields on this. The max altitude was only 20km, not even high atmo. The terminal velocity of the capsule at 3km and below is 300m/s, and parachutes can only open around 250m/s. The pod is accelerating to unsafe speeds while under 3km. I'm pretty sure that for most other people the capsule has a terminal velocity under 200m/s, otherwise the game would be unplayable. In fact, the drag is so low that if I put a full hammer, separator, pod & parachute, the pod burns up on ascent, instead of being punted into space as normal. "Reloaded override drag cube for zeroed cube root part mk1pod on vessel Untitled Space Craft" <-- This sounds like the point where an unreasonably small drag is being applied to the capsule. I expect I'm unpacking the v1.05 update wrong somehow.

Version 1.0.5 build id = 01028 2015-11-10_18-03-24 Capsule + Parachute has 300m/s terminal velocity at sea level; can't open parachutes. Fresh install, no mods. Hammer+separator+Mk1 Capsule + mk16 parachute stacked up. Launch, separate watch speed as it falls. I've found a line in KSP.log which probably relates to the problem: [LOG 21:52:53.398] Reloaded override drag cube for zeroed cube root part mk1pod on vessel Untitled Space Craft http://imagemodserver.duckdns.org/nick/tempstuff/KSP.log I first noticed this in a modded game when suborbital tourist capsules previously calibrated to 73km started flying unexpectedly high (90+km), and coming down at uncontrollable speeds. I downloaded the game again and ran an unmodded sandbox fresh from the zip to see, and capsules still have absurd terminal velocities: http://imagemodserver.duckdns.org/nick/tempstuff/Player.zip http://imagemodserver.duckdns.org/nick/tempstuff/hardinfo_report.zip Mk1 Capsule + Mk16 Parachute, boosted to 20km and allowed to fall vertically at terminal velocity: 3700m up: 300.6 m/s Slowed from supersonic 1500m up: 301.3 m/s Faster, somehow. Runway altitude: 297.4 m/s Impact

I drop solid rocket boosters into the bay, but my main stage boosters are all recovered by parachute + Stage Recovery since they are expensive. I've got a fair number of LV-Ns, but most of them are on permanent 200t fuel tankers doing the run from Minmus refinery to LKO fuel depot. I have a fleet of space planes (SSTO+M) using the same, but they land at the runway for refueling and cargo loading before heading straight out again. My biggest vice is RTGs. About 50% of my budget goes to them. Can't get enough of that always-on power. All the service trucks at KSC for driving kerbals around and connecting hoses to fuel up boosters with locally-sourced ore run on RTGs plus a small battery. Spaceplanes carry two (plus a pile more in KIS cargo to deliver to orbit and bolt onto all the things), and every vehicle in space except the old satellite network have at least one.