sevenperforce

Well, it should be noted that this changes between orbit and non-orbit. If you're on the surface of a world small enough to fly around on (Mun, Minmus, Duna, etc.), then your Kerbal is initially oriented radially, with feet toward the ground and head toward the stars. This means you can thrust upward, away from the ground, or you can thrust parallel to the ground, but you cannot perform any sort of gravity turn. If you want to go to orbit on EVA from the surface of Minmus, you have to mash Shift to get some upward clearance and then hold W (while, hopefully, pointed East) to get up to orbital speed. Once you reach a closed non-decaying orbit, however, the "EVA mode" switches, and your Kerbal suddenly reorients from being pointed radial-out to being pointed normal to the equatorial plane of that particular body. This can be a jarring transition. I think they kept a locked orientation for EVA in order to make maneuvering around between vehicles a little less challenging. For one thing, allowing non-fixed orientations would require the addition of Kerbal-rotation RCS controls in multiple planes, making EVA much harder to control. And when you're in EVA on a planet/moon surface, you really do want a horizon reference.

First thing I used one for was to do a Mercury-Atlas launch, with the structural cylinder acting as the mounting point for the jettisonable side engines. I may also rework my Dragon 1 and Dragon 2 models to use a structural cylinder instead of the Mk3 short payload bay I had been using.

That setting is the default. Kerbal always reorients back to camera view whenever S/W input is given. That being said, the Kerbal's angle to the equatorial plane always remains zero, and so thrust is always equatorially coplanar.

This is true. However, it seems absurdly obvious that the Wolfhound and the Skiff stats should be swapped 1-to-1. This must have been a mistake. Consider: The engine on the left is very clearly this: ...and the engine on the right is very clearly this: However, when you look at stats: Engine Mass (tonnes) Vacuum thrust (kN) Vacuum isp (s) TWR CSM SPS 0.1 91 314 92 Wolfhound 2.5 375 412 15 Rocketdyne J-2 1.8 1,033 421 58 Skiff 1.0 300 330 30 You could literally just swap these stats. The SPS had twice the TWR of the J2, but the Skiff has twice the TWR of the Wolfhound. The J-2 had more total thrust than the SPS, but the Wolfhound has more total thrust than the Skiff. The isp lines up perfectly. The stats are simply switched. There is no other possible explanation.

Well, to be accurate, you can thrust in the equatorial plane or normal to it. So you can fly in any direction, but that doesn't mean you can thrust in any direction. The RCS jetpack allows a Kerbal in orbit to go straight up, straight down, forward, backward, left, or right. So in theory, you can thrust in any direction, right? Nope, because the Kerbal's orientation in space never changes. Jeb's head is always "north" and his feet are always "south" relative to the planet he's orbiting, no matter what his orbit's inclination is. So even though you can point in an infinite number of directions, all those directions lie along a 360-degree circle parallel to the equatorial plane. WASD will only thrust in that plane, and Shift/Ctrl will only move you up and down perpendicular to that plane. Unfortunately, this means that an inclined orbit is going to be hard to change with the "get out and push" approach. An inclined orbit's prograde vector continually changes relative to the orbital plane. I once did a Minmus EVA landing with Jeb from a highly inclined, highly eccentric capsule. It was a nightmare because I could never just thrust in the direction I wanted; I had to constantly switch between thrusting along the plane and thrusting vertically,

I'm just saying, the specs should be reversed. The Apollo CM SPS had decent thrust but unremarkable isp; the J-2 was the one with wicked isp. I'm bummed that we have to use the Kodiak for both the core and the upper stage of a Soyuz clone.

No gimbal is intentional, to fit the IRL version. But they should have a SL one and a vacuum one.

We couldn't even think about designing a moon lander without suitable engines. What about something like the Rutherford, but using nitric acid in place of LOX, using resistance heaters to vaporize propellants for autogenous pressurization and temperature management, and using spark-vapor ignition? Solar power with batteries and fuel cell backup. Should get much better reusability than another pressure-fed hypergol solution, with equivalent reliability.

What, exactly, is the inflatable airlock good for?

On the topic of moon landings -- is there any acceptable lunar ascent engine on the market today?

....okay. Done. Deorbited from a 86 km circular orbit, in one go, with no problem. Plenty of fuel left to get back in the capsule too. Your issue may be that you're trying this from an off inclination. EVA kerbals can only thrust in the equatorial plane, so if you have an inclined orbit you'll almost always end up tumbling your vehicle.

Or just go back to ksp's website and and grab the old game versions if you want to redownload them.

Another thought:

Yes, the Apollo SPS was originally intended to be used with Nova for Direct Ascent. They had already ordered the engine when they switched plans from direct ascent to lunar orbit rendezvous. But the isp was 319 seconds, not over 400. If Squad had wanted to make things interesting, they could have made the Wolfhound merely have very high vacuum TWR (other than the Rhino, the highest vacuum TWR is found on the freaking Puff monoprop engine!) and moderate isp, and made the Skiff the ridiculously-good-isp engine, but with poorer TWR (necessitating five of them on the Saturn V second stage). One really neat option would have been to change up the Skiff's LF/O ratio. Make it a cross between the J-2 and an RL-10: isp over 400 s, but a poor TWR, and a higher LF/O ratio, so you'd have to pair a standard LFO tank with a LF tank to actually get the right proportions. That would more accurately represent the challenges of hydrolox without needing to add completely new fuel types or something like that.

Yeah, blew my first attempt at an Apollo Mun lander completely haywire. Unreal. High thrust and a big engine bell, sure, but that is just ungodly isp, particularly in Kerbin-scale play. The SPS was 319 s. Isp over 400 would be okay for an RL-10 clone, but good grief, not this.

The new "Variants" thing is beast. I hated the fact that every single engine in stock (except the Vector) had a mounting plate larger than the nozzle. Once Tweakscale is up and running with the DLC parts, I can finally build a really, really convincing BFR/BFS. That Wolfhound is fantastic, especially without the mounting plate.

Purpose was to have the pod coupled to a service module, which performs fore/aft translation, docking, and deorbit maneuvers, with the roll, pitch, and yaw on the pod assisting the SM for docking (having that authority up front means you only need one ring of quads at your CoM). The pod thrusters also control attitude on entry; you don't need translation there. This isn't a Dragon 1/2, where everything you need is on the pod itself. Odd, I've never had a problem with it. Line up in the direction you want to go, EVA jetpack to right behind your heat shield, and come in very very gently. Then just sit there and hold W. Of course I have usually tried with largish vehicles, so if you are dealing with a tiny pod you may need to use slightly smaller RCS inputs.

Launching in less than a year, actually.

As I've proven several times, I have no trouble pulling off F9 recoveries without the need for FMRS.

It would be nice if the northern launchpad had something the other one didn't.

The engine nozzle is under tension when it is producing hundreds of kN of thrust. It is not terribly strong against compression. Consider this: If you hit the back end of the trailer with a vehicle big enough to actually hit one of the Merlins, that particular engine is toast. This is probably true. You'd have to really hit it hard to actually break the sidebody. But it would be unflyable for sure.

"And so that's why the Proton has a reputation for...." I wonder what kind of fine someone would have to pay if they damaged a rocket... are there any past examples? I suspect that unless you are either silly rich or forgiven by SpaceX, you'd wind up filing for bankruptcy and having your pay garnished until the day you die. Though really, there's probably a whole convoy to prevent collisions. Oh, oh, I know this one! The booster is insured against accidental damage every second it is on the road. However, if you run into it, you're liable. Fortunately, your auto insurance will cover it. Unfortunately, you probably don't have enough coverage to pay for a million-dollar rocket, and you'd be on the hook. Fortunately, the insurance coverage on the booster has an "underinsured motorist" provision to cover whatever your insurance won't cover. Unfortunately, that insurance company can still come after you to be paid back. Fortunately, they can only come after you if they do so within a very brief period of time, and usually they won't. Unfortunately, no insurance company will ever sell you car insurance again if you ruin a multimillion-dollar rocket.

Well, it's a unit. You can't just get rid of it. Well, your math is correct, but you need to make sure that you are using units. "1.31" and "0.32" are meaningless unless you actually attach units. You should say "1.31 lb/sec" or "0.32 lb/sec". Otherwise, what if you end up getting fuel flow in gallons per second, or kilograms per minute?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz-A

Square.