blorgon

Gonna start working on the last phase of a 100% hands-off Mun flag-planting mission, the CAB landing. Not sure if I want to try a targeted landing or just put the craft down anywhere. Not quite sure where to start for a targeted landing.

Yep already got it. Thanks!

Okay thanks. EDIT: fixed the other thing.

Quick question: Are the city lights supposed to be this.... blotchy? If so, can I remove the detaildark and detaillight .dds files, or is there more to removing the city lights? And is the sun supposed to look like this? Seems like it's missing a lens flare.

There's also this tool for finding the number and type of parachutes you'd need in a landing with a desired touchdown velocity: https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20161225235749/http://ksp.freeiz.com// As far as the OP, for anything heavier than a microlander, I tend to use a powered descent. Although my rover delivery system comes in at transfer velocity, so I use the inflatable heat shield and parachutes for that particular type of mission.

@JadeOfMaar and you can play with it here: https://www.geogebra.org/m/UMnrHYC

It's a planet shadow transit time calculator, for figuring out exactly how much battery power you'll need for the longest possible transit for a given orbit around any planet in the stock system.

Just realized I forgot the gif:

Except that all of the values in the table add up to well above 100%... You can't have more than 100% of your rocket's total thrust, but the way it's described implies as much:

I've been away from the game since 1.1.3 dropped. BUT, I finally finished the Dark Side Transit Calculator update I started about a month ago. Some of you might remember when I first made this back in July. I've since updated it to allow the user to select any planet—not just Kerbin—and fixed some error prone behavior.

How can the horizontal and vertical thrust percentages add up to more than 100%? Also, I've always been under the impression that launching a projectile at 45° maximizes horizontal distance. Wouldn't it be ideal to launch at 45°, and then go horizontal as soon as your apoapsis reaches the height of your target orbit (assuming we're talking about non-atmospheric bodies)?

https://www.geogebra.org/m/UMnrHYCX Calculates the absolute longest possible* dark side transit time of a spacecraft for user-specified orbital characteristics in a prograde orbit that is 0° inclined relative to the planet's orbital plane (not the planet's equator). Instructions: use the slider to select the planet, input your apoapsis and periapsis, click animate to see the satellite move! * The absolute longest possible transit is one in which the orbit is 0° inclined relative to the planet's orbital plane, and the apoapsis is directly in the middle of the shadow. Due to the nature of the software I used to make the calculator, including inputs for argument of periapsis and longitude of ascending node was, practically speaking, impossible. In the case of inclined orbits (on either the semi-major, or -minor axis), well, just know you’ll have some buffer. The added complexity in programming Geogebra to be able to handle the rotations (consistently) wasn’t worth the effort, especially with how many weird bugs in the software I encountered. One last note: I haven’t added moons yet, but since your spacecraft’s longest transit will be through the planet’s shadow as the moon orbits it, and not the moon’s shadow, you can just input your apoapsis as the altitude of the moon’s orbit around the planet, if that makes sense. If not, I can draw a diagram!

Also, I've actually been working on a calculator that will calculate for inclined orbits too. Of course, an orbit whose ellipse is perpendicular to Kerbin's orbital path and with a transit whose midpoint is apoapsis will always be the absolute longest transit. But I wanted to work it out anyway.

Well would you look at that. Google failed me miserably when I was searching for this, so I ended up making my own calculator and coming up with my own formula. Nice to know it exists. Gonna go check my results against this equation now!

Thanks! I have to write up some instructions, and then upload the Geogebra worksheet somewhere for people to download it. Will probably do that today. Right now, though, you can't input inclined orbits. Ideally, I'd make this into an actual application or webpage similar to Alex Moon's, but I don't have those kind of skills 8{

Finally finished the dark side transit calculator I've been working on for a few days. Here's a gif.

Necroing this because I would really appreciate being able to embed Gfycats here.

Currently reworking the 3D graphical calculator. Check back soon!

Well yeah... but I was just explaining why it takes longer for his kerbals to settle on Gilly than on Kerbin.

Yesterday, I wrote a kOS script for a battery indicator light + low power warning system. https://gfycat.com/AnotherThirstyColt

That's not inverse gravity, that's how gravity works. Gilly's surface gravity is 0.049 m/s^2. Escape velocity is a mere burst of RCS away. It takes a long time to settle back to the ground because you're only gaining 5cm/s of velocity every second. Say you jump with an initial vertical velocity of 5m/s. You'd reach a height of 255m, and take 3 minutes and 20 seconds to fall back to the ground again.

Having never played anything in VR, I don't see how a third person view of your craft wouldn't be sufficiently comfortable. Instead of the 'camera' being centered on your spacecraft, it could be where the traditional camera is—and being able to switch to a different perspective, like a hullcam view, would be nice too. You'd be able to look around and zoom in/out just like you can now, but with the added immersion of a seamless game world. The real meat of the VR experience would, of course, be in IVA, and in EVA if the devs felt like adding a first-kerbal view. I would do some questionable things if it meant I could fly the ALCOR in VR.

This, turned on its side.

I'd imagine something like this would require a complete overhaul of how the planets are built. Not being a programmer, the only way I've ever seen terrain deformation done is with voxels. Think Astroneer. I would go absolutely nuts if this were a thing in KSP. Terrain deformation and massive base building operations are near the top of the list of things I want for KSP. Of course, I'd want to have to build actual Mun-movers, and not just run around with a giant cartoon deformation gun like Astroneer.

I spent three days trying to write a hoverslam script from scratch. I was trying to look for ways to cheat out of having to account for changing mass and acceleration, and I was totally stumped. Some of my prototypes were 40+ lines. Then it hit me. Slapped this together in 5 minutes, and now I've got worry free hoverslams for any body, and any lander with a TWR > 2 (even lower with a small tweak). I posted this in the "What did you do today?" thread, but wanted to share here, since I'm really proud of it. See my sig for more kOS videos!