Awaras

Actually, with patched conics it\'s pretty easy.

OK, I\'m game. Here you go: Mission: Orbit the sun Craft: Kerbol orbiter I assume the command pod is free? Since you did not list it in the prices? Components used: 1 Command pod - ? Kennies 1 ZO2 tank main - 5,000 Kennies 2 ZO2 solar panels - 40,000 Kennies 3 Large fuel tanks - 4,500 Kennies 3 Small LF Engines - 6,000 Kennies 3 SRB\'s - 3,000 Kennies Total: 58,500 Kennies (+ whatever the command pod costs, I hope it does not cost over 40,000...) Mission report (spoilered because of large pictures): I waited until around midday to launch. Took off using the \'overheat and blow\'em up\' method of SRB decoupling. After reaching around 30 km altitude I set Smart A.S.S. to \'surf\', HDG 90, PIT 45. I kept burning until I made escape velocity: Then it was a long wait to reach my periapsis on the other side of Kerbol (Sun) During this time I had to decrease time warp to 1x several times to re-position my ship so the solar panels are always in the sun. After reaching periapsis, I burned prograde until I raised my apoapsis well above the orbit of Kerbin: Again, I waited until I reached apoapsis, and then burned prograde until my projected path reconnected with the Kerbin SOI: And again the waiting... Approaching Kerbin: After reentering Kerbin SOI, my periapsis was around 70km. I burned retrograde to reduce it under 30 km. Home sweet home: Reentry: Splashdown! I used Mechjeb landing autopilot to land. Splashing down ripped off the solar panels: Final mission data: Overall, I made over one and a half orbits around the sun before landing back on Kerbin.

So you just have to orbit the sun and not return for 10 mil?

It does need oxygen to burn, tho...

13.3 is the free demo. If you want 15.2 with all the goodies (better graphics, spaceplanes, another moon etc.) you have to buy the game.

Nice, but can it go into guardian mode? ;D I\'m sure something could be done to do it... If people can make flying dragons this should be possible too. See what you can do with the Damned Robotics mod.

I don\'t think number of parts is a very objective metric... Total cost or total weight would be better imo.

It\'s kinda difficult to plan a mission for your challenge when we have no idea how much stuff costs... :\

Thank you for your answers. As for the space plane parts and joint ventures I am all for that.

Don, can you please clarify the 'Raise apoapsis to 350km' and 'Demonstrate at least 100m/s dV capability using only the RCS system'? First of all, boosting with RCS prograde from a circular 200x200 km orbit for 100 m/s dV WILL increase the apoapsis of the ship almost to 350 km. Does that count? Second, do we need to actually reach the altitude of 350 km? Circularize the orbit there? or just raise apoapsis to 350km and go straight to deorbiting maneuvers?

Couldn\'t agree with you more.

after you get to geostationary orbit, you can lower your periapsis/raise apoapsis slightly and then circularise again after a full orbit...

Yeah, I also assumed that the decoupler is OK... Hope that\'s all right.

First of all, you need the full version of the game, plugins don\'t work in the free demo. You download most of the plugins as a zip file. Inside this file you will usually find folders called \'Parts\' \'Plugins\' and \'Source\' (sometimes they are inside a folder that has the same name as the mod you are installing). If you are not a coder, you will not need the \'Source\' folder - it is the source code for the plugin, put there so that people can see there is no malicious code in the plugin. What you need to do is to copy the \'parts\' and \'plugins\' folders into your KSP game folder, answer \'yes\' if the computer asks you to overwrite existing files/folders and that should be it.

You know what? I really, REALLY hate clouds... Sigh...

This would be very appropriate for a ship made of legos.

I have played TogFox\'s and DonLorenzo\'s excellent forum campaigns, and I have to say that the addition of a budget and having to pay for each part you put on your rocket forces you to think harder about your designs and makes you build things more efficiently. It\'s great fun. A different kind of fun but still fun.

http://www.transitofvenus.org/june2012/eye-safety/280-viewing-the-transit-eye-safety 'More recently, solar observers have used floppy disks and compact disks (CDs and CD-ROMs) as protective filters by covering the central openings and looking through the disk media. However, the optical quality of the solar image formed by a floppy disk or CD is relatively poor compared to aluminized polyester or welder’s glass. Some CDs are made with very thin aluminum coatings that are not safe—if a lighted light bulb can be seen through the CD, it should not be used!'

Here is my winning design: (the autopilot settings are for a NORTH pole landing...) I tried to make it so that the number of boosters of each stage is half of the stage before it. It goes 12, 7, 4, 3, 2, 1, 1 boosters per stage.

The only way I can think of is to do it by timing your launches - launching one ship every x minutes...

I wasn\'t talking about the FTL that Harvester coded, I was talking about plugins in general. I mean, if it is possible to teleport an entire ship into orbit (see the orbital construction mod), I would imagine it would be possible for a plugin to directly overwrite the current speed to simulate a FTL drive without acceleration that would break the ship apart. Right?

Is the speed of the currently active craft stored somewhere the plugins can access? If it is, couldn\'t you just make the FTL drive an \'on/off\' thing without thrust? When ftl is turned on, the plugin instantly changes the speed value to something insanely fast (lightspeed or above) in the prograde direction, when it\'s off, the plugin resets the speed to its original value.

A question about the 'Deposit a \'Probe\' in Kerbol orbit' mission: Does it matter what kind of orbit or is it just 'probe leaves Kerbin SOI and does not fall back into it for at least one orbit around Kerbol'?

I agree with your decision to make engines expensive since it forces us to come up with some interesting designs. However I feel that, as things are set up now the gimballed engine might as well not be in the game, and that is a pity, since it limits our possibilities. As things stand now, the only reason anyone would even consider using the gimballed engine is if they are dead set against using mechjeb or have an extra 5000$ they can\'t seem to get rid of in any other way. Even if the large and gimballed LFE\'s cost the same, the large is still preferable. Still, as you say, this is just something to be noted for future versions of the campaign, its probably not a good idea to change things in the middle of the campaign.

That is what I meant - I asked if it would be possible to make the exhaust effect for the aerospike use the same particle effect as the regular LFE only reddish/yellow in color instead of blue?