nanomage

what is this awesome skybox? is that how it looks by default in 1.2?

yeah i agree noone in real life goes there without a jupiter assist, just because it's big and it's there to save you money. KSP is different though because it's easier to build a bigger rocket than chain up two non-hohman transfers to and from Jupiter. But then again, in order to beat the contract deadline, it's easier to make an even bigger rocket and just fly to pluto in a straight line. I really don't know what's the best way to go about those contracts. To me personally, they discourage Voyager type missions because of 'send new probe' checkbox, tight schedules (i'm not as good as nasa so can't be sure to make do in 15 years, or 12 like Voyager 2), and 20000km height limit (quite tight for gas giants), barring you from a large portion of gravity assist trajectories. btw even voyager two was originally only 'contracted' to visit Jupiter and Saturn, yet the game requires a new probe after accepting contract. But again, this is just rambling, i don't have solutions to how make them better EDIT: that last bit got me thinking that by RP-0 terms, flyby of Uranus is still up for grabs because Voyager-2 didn't tick the height criterion. If something has to be changed about flyby contracts, i'd say first to go is scaling height with target size

flybys of neptune and pluto (and uranus to a lesser extent) come with 15-year contract deadlines, necessitating highly (or in case of uranus, slightly) non-hohmann transfers or complicated gravity assists to get there in time. might be argued it's intentional though?

that's just the way return film camera experiment is configured - transmittable science returns are 1% or so even if you mod in an antenna fast enough to transmit the package in time to not be hit by the 'transmitted science not adding up to total count' issue. You'll always have to do a return with those. in dMagic orbital science, there's an 'orbital telescope' experiment that's transmittable and rp-0 approved.

The contracts for flybys, loitering in orbits, and landings all require you to launch a new vehicle after you accept them. Are you sure that you're doing it, and is the 'launch new vessel' checkbox ticked in the contract overview when these issues (like timer not starting) happen?

thank you, that fixes it. Indeed, RSS sets timewarp altitudes at timewarpAltitudeLimits = 0 5000 ... for the Moon (and for other bodies without simulated atmospheres), 0 is likely below ground for half the surface, 5000 is also below ground where i tried landing. Not quite sure which one of these gets picked, but changing to timewarpAltitudeLimits = 15000 15000 ... gets rid of the issue.

Hi friends, I wonder if landing on the Moon is possible in Cantor, and if it is, how to select a proper reference frame for it? When trying to land in 'Surface' reference frame tied to the moon, actual lunar surface seems to have a speed of ~130m/s due west (on the equator). Even if matched, this speed appears to make the physics engine think it's a high speed collision and on touchdown, vessels bounce around erratically or explode. Also the entire surface seems quaking when seen from low altitudes. Honestly, I'm at a bit of a loss about where these 130m/s come from, so just asking whether this is known issue? If it's not, what debug info can i post to help understand it?

that makes total sense. i thought first stage was a bit oversized but if it's hydrogen it's all good. 1.4 twr on the second stage is probably even better than actually required As a totally side note, however, the real all-hydrogen Delta IV Heavy has a payload of 28.8 tons to 200x200 LEO with the gross mass of 733,000 kg, giving the weight to payload ratio of 25.45 . That might make some people think that rockets with 15 or 13.5 mass ratio are unrealistically efficient? What makes them possible in RO?

your rocket looks reasonable. what are your twr and dV readouts? is that a hydrogen second stage?

Hi all, I'm probably missing something obvious here, but in the latest dev version, when the stock launch button is disabled (not overridden), how do I launch a simulation flight?

referring to Earth-Moon L5 point, i was able to find this article: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281717946_Optimal_low-cost_transfer_to_L4_and_L5_lagrangian_points_based_on_G-family_of_periodic_orbits as far as Sun-Earth L5 is concerned, I wasn't able to find anything specific to L5. Here is, however, an article about going to L3 that can probably be easily adapted for L5: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00568378/document. The braking burn at destination is estimated around 500-1500m/s for L3 (probably smaller for a similar-duration transfer to L5?)

no because the mod doesn't model the gravity fields of spaceships.

oh, don't get me started on scrubbers

I have this as well. My understanding is that recycling branch is not rp-0 compatible or ready, and is blocked in this way instead of slapping nono-rp0 tags on parts for some reason. Configs for recyclers and their reactions are indeed weird, so blocking them from use is probably intended.

1. To test my mars and venus landers without being constrained by RT I had to start simulation in orbit, docked to a manned pod to allow direct control, stage/extend/deorbit/undock everything in advance and then use mechjeb during descent to override RT and allow 'wasd' controls. As far as i understand, you are now actually supposed to use smart parts to trigger that final retrorocket burn when landing on mars. With test flight and engine failures, well you just keep pressing 'restart simulation' button until you roll a flight where none of your 36 NK-33 engines breaks. I think that button is free in terms of funds. Alternatively, you spend a month running a ground team collecting some engine data before simulating. 2. Smth is seriously wrong if a launch-clamped rocket on the pad wouldn't allow you control. Sorry I'm afraid i can't offer any assistance with this.

1. - I confirm this. Does not happen every time, but often I noticed that the buttons to 'disable part failures' and 'disable remotetech' do not do anything in simulation. You can engineer around it though 2. If you are using those blue procedural batteries, might be a good idea to check if they're actually full on flight start. I had problems with them all the time where they'd start out empty and i'd drain the small uppers stage batteries very quicky and lose control. Other than that, no idea Do you see the "insufficient avionics, locking controls" anywhere on the screen or log when it happens?

The first difference that comes to mind is that sandbox mode starts with a fully upgraded launch pad, and maybe some buggy physics shaking occurs on the flat 1st level launchpad but not on the grated upgraded one. Could you please try holding your rocket with launch clamps if you aren't already - that's what you would've done realistically anyway?

I guess you'd be missing Deadly Reentry, because that's the mod that has LEO-rated heatshields in my install: RealismOverhaul\RO_RecommendedMods\RO_DeadlyReEntry.cfg:602: @name = Heatshield-5M

Hi, thanks for creating this absolutely wonderful mod. Since I'm unduly interested in Venus, I was wondering if you have plans around utilising sulphur compounds found there, mainly in well-known sulphuric acid decomposition reaction: H2SO4 = H2O + SO3, followed by catalytic SO3 = SO2 + O , and in this methane-sulphur dioxide reaction: 2SO2 + CH4 = CO2 + 2H2O + 2S , that I found here: http://ase.tufts.edu/nano-cel/publications/directReductionSO2.pdf These can be useful as a native source of hydrogen on Venus to get the same Sabatier + water gas shift going and producing methane as on Mars. Sulphur dioxide is 150ppm on Venus, and the acid forms the cloud layer, so realistically both can be considered a feasible output of an air intake? If you have plans to add these, can I help by creating configs for these reactions and their thermal inputs/outputs?

Yes it applies retrospectively as well. After you upgrade your VAB you notice that production rate is boosted.

VAB builds faster at higher levels, too. (1 upgrade point is worth more points/day)

You have thermometer, barometer and bio sample at the start node, and probe cores can 'analyse telemetry' for early science. That's a lot of science if you are not averse to grinding all those different launch sites.

I really like it so, a few new probe cores loosely called 'nth generation spy/military/research sattelite' would be scattered around the tech tree, that serve as both control unit for the sattelite and 'tank' for that new resource you described, be it 'processing power' or 'classified equipment' with tank capacity and probe dimensions increasing with tech level. Then contracts would appear to orbit a sattelite containing those parts and a specified amount of the resource, and we can have contracts to orbit anything from a tiny cubesat to 80-ton Polyus battle station. Maybe even plug the stock 'test blahblahblah on a blah-blah-blah trajectory' contract mechanic here, so that the parts are only available when a contract is ongoing.

To avoid the necessity to add lead ballast to your sattelites to achieve specified weight, it would be really neat if contracting agencies actually provided you with (semi-)complete sattellites to orbit as undivisable parts of specified mass and dimensions, posessing some or all of requested properties (so, sometimes self-propelled or sometimes not, or requiring external power or not). Assuming models for them can be found somewhere and rescaled as required. Once you get those things flying, you can think of future contracts to service or deorbit them (in 1 piece, that is). Maybe there already is a mod that does something similar to any of it and can be made rp-0-compatible? i'd definitely like to give it a try, this seems to me like it would've been a wonderful mechanic.

It's purely theoretical advice, but could you just try the stock patched conics/maneuver nodes to plan a rendezvous? There is an option to enable them in the plugin settings. LEO should be one place where conics are reasonably correct over a few hours.