Buster Charlie

Well the glowing windows would be a huge boost for me, especially if they would change relative to the scene I they appeared normal in daylight, but as you entered the shadow of a planet the windows appear to be lit without you having to turn them on and off, because they look kinda goofy lit in daylight.... But the windowshine mod didn't appear to make the game any slower, I just couldn't justify losing window lights for a mod that didn't work with all other mods. If this was a stock thing, I think moders would do it Edit: why do people use their machine performance as a reason? I'm sure it would be an optional graphics toggle that you could completely ignore.

I like smart parts, but it hasn't been updated for 1.0.5, and honestly it has a lot of parts and features I never used. I made a lot of use of the timer function, the fuel gauge function, and the altimeter. The fuel jettison was handy for some stuff too I guess. Is it even possible to make a mod to add these functions to the tweak menu of parts instead of forcing us to add a physical part? Like give all parts that carry fuel the ability to stage when at a certain amount? I was just reading about "stage and a half" rockets and thought it would be fun to be able to build a rocket that staged some engines when it reached a certain altitude or fuel level of a central core tank, automatically.

Sounds like a fun challenge, the upper stage to this was my emergency duna escape orbiter. I guess I'll have to see if I can do the same with kis when I get home.

No I landed between ksc and the mountain range, but the flight recorder lost the last part. I did however forget I was suppose to land at the ksc so I almost ditched it, then had to do some fancy stuff to make my landing. Good thing I had plenty of fuel left over. I could have even landed engine first with the booster stage, but I decided once I was on target I'd jettison it to lighten my load and hopefully have less drag, then deploy air brakes and parachutes if it looked like I was going to overshoot. I landed short, but east of the mountain range. The mission planner said I think around 23km. Overall a fun and challenging mission. I'd be fun to see if it could be done for less than the cost of the lander, maybe with stage recovery.

Some comments after running a few missions. I'd like to be able adjust the pre and post event recordings for specific events. Maybe even vehicle specific I would like it to recognize that a custom recording took place at the same time as a auto event, and maybe merge the two to reduce duplicates. Is there a way to auto record for engine burns over a certain amount of time or delta v? This might document events that are otherwise not triggered. When I was trying to dock with the klaw, it recorded like 8 different touchdowns and liftoff in a small amount of time, maybe filter out these kind of events if they take place too close together or over a very short distance. Can I custom name custom events or add a description? The recorder lost my landing, so that was kinda sad, not sure why it showed up on these website bit after I quit ksp and reloaded it lost the last part. I would really like to be able to take a full resolution no ui picture and maybe if possible a map view for some of these events. So for launch maybe it to speaker 3 or 4 evenly spaced still pictures you can choose one picture to be the enlarge photo if needed. Awesome mod, really hope it off. Would it be possible to automatically build a flow chart or subway map style chart of a mission? An idea on docking, is it possible to make a separate mission for the docked vessels (Apollo -soyuz) that links to the main vessels profiles? So a time line may go like liftoff Stage 1 separation Orbit Docked with soyuz Undock with soyuz Reentry Landing. And you basically have a branch/link to a Apollo-soyuz mission that is self contained and ends when they undock. Maybe you can manually insert that mission info into your main miasion, or keep it as it's own branch.

I like that, but what of recovery? I guess that was my main goal, what is the smallest liferaft to get off a planet or moon.

Okay since nobody has said a peep I guess there is no interest in this challenge or maybe I was not specific enough.

I think your mission was about 100X more sane than mine, Great job!

Here we go. Mission Profile here (I swear it captured the rentry and landing, but when I left the game and reloaded, it lost them, so frustrated. But at least it recorded I landed. I landed between the KSC and the mountain range, I hope that counts. http://gameframer.com/#/ksp/missions/56d639898f27ef4537930018 I also feel proud that in order to recover 26,915.2 Kerbal Dollars, I launched a ship worth 269,790 and only recovered 15,702 worth of ship not including the Mun Lander. So.... The mission was a Net loss of 227,172.8 Kerbal dollars, Plus one Astronaut. I suspect even at current labor market prices we can say this was a Success! BTW No snakcs were recovered... Ship available here http://gameframer.com/#/ksp/vessels/56d654cb124b585f38b5a471 Highlights MET 0 LIFTOFF 63 seconds in the first liquid stage and boosters separate, Rhino fires. 101 seconds in the horrible stock farrings confetti at 50k & 0.06 Day 2nd Stage Separates on Ejection burn, 3rd stage payload engine takes over. 0.16 Day correction burn on course to mun & 1.09 days. Nausea inducing Mun Transfer and SOI change. 1.27 Days Lucky for me I packed too much fuel, because I was coming in hot to the mun and had to circularize at a very inefficient profile. 1.31 Days Preparing for Landing & 1.32 Separating from Payload Booster, give it a little nudge by accident but that actually helps it keep clear on slowdown burn. 5.37 Day, huge time lapse because I wanted to make sure landing happened on day side of Mun, otherwise I would have landed shortly after 1.32 & Deploying KLAW Day 5.38 Awkwardly descending onto target and trying to get klaw to engage & After bouncing up and down to get a dock I Launch to 30k and Jettison the Landing legs and fuel. Day 6, Matching Speed with payload booster & Day 6.01 RCS less docking manuver 6.03 Docked and ready to ejection burn, hello kerbin! & Day 6.29. goodbye mun! Day 7.82 Correction burns before rentry This is where it lost my mission, hope you enjoyed it.

I hope this works, First Mission Attempt, I tried to make the most Kerbal Booster Rocket, and I lost control and had to abort during circularization. Full mission details here. http://gameframer.com/#/ksp/missions/56d630a8b030832620ba7f6c On the plus side my Rentry worked!

Oh it's always the power of 10 prefixes that mess me up. Ah well you get the idea.

Quick question, what is the maximum periapsis an on rail ship can have and still be recovered by stagerecovery? I haven't been able to figure this out, I don't want to do too aggressive a Detroit and burn up, but nothing is more annoying than babysitting debris

Well my core stage, I usually eject it sub orbital. And get a penalty for its distance from ksc. It keeps things simple, I like to keep my payload stage short to allow it to rotate quickly without using rcs. Another strategy I've done a couple of times using smart parts was to eject the core stage when at 60 or 70k, tell it to face retrograde and burn the rest of the fuel, the result was an almost space x style recovery, but I found the timing unreliable. So now if I want max recovery, I boost the into onto circular orbit, separate the payload stage, and use a probe core and reaction wheel to deorbit the core stage when it will reenter near ksc for better recovery

I'm down for banana dosage schemes, call them dB, for deciBananas

Because of the amount of crashes and bugs in the game I've decided for self control vs handicapping myself. So my rules are, manned missions are about crew survival. I've had several failed launches due to rocket design errors, and I've suffered the consequenceso of staging off the capsule for recovery, knowing my rocket was going to splat. If the crew had died, even though I have reverting and saving enable, I have a brain and and self control, so I didn't revert because the failure was part of my game, not caused by a bug. I had an unmanned launch, the satellite stage had no parachute because it had no crew and no recovery plans. Alas one of the srb crashed into the core and the entire rocket broke up into a dozen fragmenta. Miraculously my 2nd stage was unharmed, I had enough reaction wheels to steer it and tried to do a propulsive landing even though it had an vacuum rated engine. I almost pulled a engine landing, but I was off by about 50ms and it splashed hard. The next launch worked fine, and I suppose I could now put abort chutes on a probe to save it during a launch abort. I guess my point is, just because I can revert or abort, doesn't mean I am forced to. Like others have said sometimes the game throws you a curve ball. I might revert a flight if there is something stupid like the launch clamps being on the wrong stage, ill justify that as a launch pad abort, the rocket didn't take off, it's just a faster way to recycle the launch for me to revert to launch, move down the clamps, and retry.

Okay, I was just making sure I wasn't missing something obvious. But I'd love a mod you show the soil visually as a toggle feature. Yeah it's targeted, and yes I don't have huge issues with this, but some times I have very limited delta v for something (poor planning) and it'd hard to get the very bare minimum SOI change. I think a visual indicator of how close I am to the soi might make it easier for me to know which direction I need to tweak

Sometimes when I am trying to intercept a planet or moon I'm apparently missing the SOI by a tiny amount and I spend way you too much time tweaking maneuver nodes. Is there any way to visualize the soi and or position of a planet relative you my maneuver node so I can more easily intercept planets?

http://www.space.com/24731-mars-radiation-curiosity-rover.html

Please feel free to private message me if you wish to continue this but PLEASE DO NOT HIJACK VENUS OR MARS TO TALK ABOUT EARTH RELATED ATOMIC ENERGY! Thank you!

I lower the landing legs ( on the bottom of the girder legs) to grab the craft, then blow them on takeoff to reduce weight and keep them from causing trouble with the craft on reentry. I have't tried it yet but I hope to parachute inverted and land on the heat sheild, i'm hoping the large reaction wheel will keep me upright on the 2.5m shield, This thing can spin very fast with the rescued lander attached so I think overall it should do it. I chose RCS only because it's light enough on the mun that 3 (for minimal hover symmetry) of those little side mounted RCS engines gave me of TWR over 5! They're so light weight that even if I could have gotten a better isp out of LFO, it would have meant I needed another tank because I still need monoprop for translation (Sometimes I can land RIGHT on top of the target, other-times i'm a little off and need a short hop and hover to lock on. So in short, RCS allows me to have one main tank instead of two, so that keeps the whole thing from getting TOO long, although I added some small drop tanks to the legs since they lower the CG even more for landing, and keep my main tank full for ascent, orbit, and Rendezvous. I think I may strip out some of the extra battery, it could almost do the whole misson with no solar at this point. Also a little touch, you specified this is a manned rescue mission so the lander can is actually inverted in all these shots. At launch the legs aim up, covered by a fairing, so the lander can is the cockpit for most of the flight. After separating the lander from the orbital engine I 'control from here' a 1.25 stack control core that has been inverted so my navball will be facing the right way when landing, since the legs are actually facing 'up'. Then once I get back to the orbital return stage i'll switch back to the other orientation for a forward facing burn.

I actually really like that, it's a nice use of the MK2 adapter to provide a nice clean engine cluster, and it's thinning lines work with the added bulk of the boosters. Very... fish like?

So whats the best way to handle this? There are tons of mods and stock SRB, I could maybe do some custom textures for existing models and try to make a custom config version of existing SRB (Lisence allowing) to replace some of their SRB Propellant with LFO mix. I think the most elegant method would be to maybe piggyback with one of those fuel switcher mods and allow one of the fuel load-outs to be a hybrid, with appropriate texture swapping. ANyone who's handy with writing this sort of mod, i'd be happy to do some custom textures to make them distinctive.

NOOO. OP uses stage recovery, and goes to stupid lengths to make even my 2nd stage booster a mini drone that can limp home for recovery after deploying the payload in minmus or mun orbit. It's super easy to strap a parachute on my SRB and away we go. I normally do this if i don't get satisfactory TWR on my core stage but don't want to complicate a standard booster design, or if I just want a bit of extra kick to get the whole crazy train started straight and fast. However I just noticed usually SRB kick the TWR way overboard, and throttling them normally ends in them getting into issues with rocket collisions if they follow the orbit too high, and lower stage recovery results. So because of that I try to ditch the SRB before the rocket starts to turn so much the boosters can't cleanly separate without a septron. So then the issue is, if I'm using a smaller SRB, it's not giving the core as much of a boost. But on the flip side, if the smaller SRB has enough thrust to boost the core stage AND carry extra fuel without decreasing performance then my core stage will separate from the boosters will a full fuel load. But then like others have said, is this just complicating the design? Why not use more powerful core stages? Who knows. It's all just me trying to optimize the rocket for the sake of the art of it, not any gameplay mechanic reason. I like elegant designs that look like real rockets, not pancakes, but I don't mind going a little extravagant now and then...

I dunno I get like 98% of my booster cost back from stagerecovery, since they land so close to base. Thanks everyone for the replies, I see this has really taken off and i'm glad I'm not the only one who's thought of this.

I've proof tested my Lander using hyperedit, Both landing and Rendezvous from Munar orbit. Just need to build the launcher and post photos of the real mission, I'll publish the full mission tomorrow night. The whole process is very kerbal, but I decided using a rover to grab it was not my style so I decided on straight from orbit klaw Rendezvous and re-orbit (jettisoning the landing leg structure/spent landing fuel as a bonus). I'll post some teaser pics, but it's not official till I do the whole mission and return.