FullMetalMachinist

In order to keep from clogging up this thread with troubleshooting parachutes, maybe start a new thread in the gameplay questions sub forum? Or search around in that forum for similar questions that have already been asked, there are several.

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but just getting the obvious out of the way. Are you sure you're using the most up-to-date versions of all your mods (and KSP, for that matter)?

This is a really common problem with newer players. Basically you're going so fast that the air just can't give you enough drag before hitting the ground. There are usually two answers, either redesign your craft to be more draggy, or use a gentler ballistic arc (have more horizontal speed, so that you spend more time in the air before you lose too much altitude). In order to know which of those to suggest, it would be helpful to see a couple screenshots. One of your craft, and one in map view showing what you trajectory looks like when you start reentry.

I don't know if I would call it easy (it is rocket science, after all) but there is a pretty straightforward method of doing what you want. @GoSlash27 calls it the "reverse rocket equation", and he wrote a great tutorial on how to use it.

This doesn't answer your actual question (sorry about thatu, feel free to ignore this) but I would suggest you reconsider your philosophy on this. Not only will using a stack decoupler completely get rid of the issue you're having, it's also literally the thing they're made for. I mean, I get that you're trying to save weight and/or part count, but scrapping an essential function of a rocket is probably not the best place to start.

Welcome to the forums! @GoSlash27 has a great tutorial on performing a reverse gravity turn. Not only does he give a great procedure for that, but also does a quick overview of the other two most common landing techniques. I suggest you read that, and then ask if you have any further questions.

As others have said, go more horizontal. The old "souposphere" is gone, so the air doesn't slow you down near as much. In order to spend more time in the thickest part of the air to slow you down, you've got to be traveling sideways. Also, for just a sub-orbital hop, the heat shield is completely unnecessary. All its doing now is adding weight (which increases your ballistic coefficient because you've got more mass but the same cross section area) and making you go faster than just the pod. When you ditch the last booster, make sure that you turn retrograde, this will provide the best braking. And a note about the parachute icon (this was already mentioned, but it's worth saying it again). The icon has two parts, the background and the actual icon part. I say this because each can change colors. If the icon part is white, then it's not broken, and ready to be staged. If the icon is blue/cyan that means that you've "armed" it by staging it, but it has not deployed yet. At this point you can right click it and disarm it, and stage it again later. If the icon is yellow then it has been pre-deployed, and a green icon is fully deployed. Now the background. If it's gray, then it's safe to deploy it (note that just because it's safe at that moment doesn't necessarily mean that it will continue to be safe. If you're falling but not yet going fast, it could be gray, and if you deploy then, it might not be enough to slow you, and you'll keep going faster until it burns up.). Yellow background means risky, so if you deploy it might work, might not. Red background means unsafe, and it will be destroyed if you deploy it.

I believe it's Alt-L

@TashAureus since it's been a day and no one has stepped in to help, allow me to try and get you some. I personally don't have the know-how to troubleshoot your issue, but those that do can do so more easily if they have the info requested in this thread: Hope this helps you get some support, and welcome to the forums!

IIRC you have to have two <thing> in a given place before the contract system will offer you contracts based off them. For instance, you need two space stations around Kerbin before you'll be offered to do anything to them, or two bases on Minmus in your case. Don't take this as Gospel truth, but I'm pretty sure @Arsonide is the one I remember saying that.

I would start here: Just look through it and read up on any topic that you'd like to know more about. There are also several good threads in the Tutorials sub forum. After that if you have any specific questions, ask those here. Happy to have you aboard, I hope you enjoy KSP!

Hi @Karpen, this is unfortunately unavoidable in KSP, modded or not. See this excellent post by sal_vager for more info.

Hi @FlyingKerbal64, could you please read this post and provide the information it asks for? It will help in diagnosing your issue. Also, a screenshot or two might help.

Upload it to an image hosting site (I like imgur) and either post the link or use the "insert from other media" button and choose url.

Not trying to be harsh, but it's your piloting. I've taken the KerbalX to Duna and back . I did have to make one modification to it. I added two of the radial drouge chutes and removed the useless monoprop from the command pod, but other than that it was all stock. It took some pretty careful planning, I had to get a gravity assist from Ike and aerobrake to capture, then I needed another gravity assist from Ike on the way home, and I ran out of fuel just as I finished the final correction burn into Kerbin's atmosphere. My point is, it should be very doable to land and return from the Mun, and easier from Minmus.

Put very nicely, and as Plusck said, that's exactly the problem. The short answer is: staging. If you have a long, skinny rocket with the bottom 1/3 as your first stage then as it's fuel burns, that stage as a whole will become lighter. This moves your CoM forward, increasing your stability. One of the problems (that Plusck already said) is the way the tanks for that one stage drain isn't ideal. Follow his advice on that, it's right on. The other problem is that if you have 3 or 4 linear stages all on top of the bottom first stage, then it takes a really big engine to lift all of that. That's where auxiliary boosters (either SRB's or asparagus LF-O) come into play. Looking at your most recent pic, it looks mostly ok, but there are a few problems. First off, the vertical fuel lines between stacked tanks aren't doing you any good. At least I don't think they are. What I would do instead is move the horizontal ones between radial stages to the top tanks. Second, when you mentioned that when you stage away the boosters they hit the center stack. I would move the decouplers down, and move the boosters down on the decouplers as far as you can go. Also make it so when you drop the first pair, that is the East/West pair, because as you start your gravity turn, the West booster is not "on top" of your rocket. So drop those first when you're still mostly vertical. I would also get rid of the fins on the boosters and just use the ones on the orange tank. And a side note related to something you said before about the TWR reading differently in VAB than on the pad. The Mechjeb readout is correct, you just have to look closer. There are two columns for TWR, one is TWR and the other is the SLT column. It stands for "sea level thrust" (I think) and it's the thrust that the stage will get when you take air pressure at sea level into account.

Sounds suspiciously like the "business in the front, party in the back" philosophy of mullets.... You rock a mullet, don't you!? Getting back on track, I prefer RSS/RO myself. As others have said, it's more complicated, but the payoff is that much more rewarding.

The problem here is that (quite understandably) your reasoning is backwards. When you have a rocket going through the air, it will rotate around it's center of mass into a position that is aerodynamically stable. This means the "heavy" side will want to be at the front, and "light and/or draggy" end at the back. Having heavy stuff at the front will move the CoM forward. Think of a dart or arrow. The tip is heavy and metal, the body is either wood or plastic, and light fins are at the back. Try throwing a dart backwards and it'll self-correct to fly front first. That's because the drag forces have a long lever arm to torque the light back end around, and a short lever arm to work on the heavy front. So the moral of the story is to try and design your rockets like a dart: heavy at the front, light at the back. Edit: relevant tutorial :

I would just copy paste the OP question. A moderator could maybe merge this thread into that one, but it's probably easier to copy paste your question there, and ask a mod to close this thread here. Edit: Oh, and just about every mod for the game has a thread in the Add-on releases forum.

Apologies, but I can't answer your question directly, because I've never paid attention to the kerbals available for hire in the astronaut complex. The main reason is I never hire new kerbals, and I suggest you don't either. Hiring new kerbals gets stupid expensive really fast (the cost is based off how many you currently have). Instead, I design an easy-to-use and reliable LKO rescue ship, and get all my new kerbals from rescue contracts. Why pay to hire new ones when you can get paid to rescue them. Granted, it is luck of the draw that decides how often they pop up, and what type the rescuee is (pilot, engineer, or scientist). If you need an engineer right now, then hiring is the way to go. But I steer pretty well clear of doing that.

Welcome to the forums! I hope you haven't been deliberately mislead, but 1.0.6 is not, and never has been, a thing that is going to happen. However 1.1 is due to come very soon, but I haven't heard if this specific bug has been squashed. As for your specific problem, could you post a screenshot of your craft? You'll need to upload it to an image hosting site (imgur.com works great) and then post the link here.

Not sure if you're aware, but there's a nasty bug with the stock fairings that causes the aero forces to be applied way out in front, causing stability issues. Fix it using Claw's Stock Bug Fix Modules. That probably won't help you much with your case of the wobbles though. You could try Kerbal Joint Reinforcement. Some very smart people around here think that it's more of a crutch, and that if you need it to stabilize your rocket then it means there's inherently something wrong with your design. I'm not saying they're wrong, or anything against them, but I'm not one of them. I say try it out and see if it helps.

@NFunky your best bet would probably be to post your question in the RSS thread, it's where most of the knowledgeable RSS folks tend to hang out. I'm sure someone there can help you out.

Ah, yes that's potentially a problem. AFAIK, that won't break the game or anything, but it's generally not a good idea to mix mod parts in with the stock files. Pretty much any and every mod you want to install goes in the Game Data folder, next to and not inside of the Squad folder.

Obligatory link to TriggerAu's Old School Keyboard Map.