MitchS

Hey everyone. I can't find RCSBA on my CKAN list for 1.2, and I really miss it. I don't see anyone else having the same issue though, and earlier in this forum, it said that RCSBA got updated for CKAN by the CKAN folks. Anyway, I'm sorry if this has been discussed elsewhere--I've searched all over and can't find any info. Is it available in CKAN and I'm just missing something?

@AeroGav "What angle of incidence are you using BTW? Are you using ALT S/W to apply 5 degrees when the wings are attached to fuselage or are you using fine rotation mode?" I'm using fine rotation, one notch. Right around there. I might have turned off angle snap and adjusted that sliiiightly lower than that one fine notch, because it looked a bit aggressive and high-drag... How many degrees are added with every fine notch? Do I actually want more than one? "I suspect the reason you're not just allowing the Phugoid to run it's course is because you're worried about the cockpit overheating." Phugoid? I'm sorry, what does that mean? "Finally, winglets... Add elevons to those strakes you're using for vertical stabilizers instead" Ah. Good observation. They USED to be well behind my CoM, but now they're vestigial organs from an earlier build and I didn't notice. I'll have the SPH guys knock them off when I get home. Haha. "I recommend... RCS Build Aid..." I use CKAN on 1.2, and RCS Build Aid (a must have in all my other career saves...) is presently unavailable, which has frustrated me every time I've opened up the game. @GoSlash27 "Your canard control surfaces aren't hinged perpendicular to the centerline. This can induce some irritating yaw coupling during maneuvering." THANK YOU. I have been noticing this for ages and haven't known why it happens. I'll fix it. Should have known better. "...and (my personal preference) rudders shouldn't respond to *any* input." Will they still be engaged by SAS if they aren't set to control yaw? The way you make it sound, you don't like rudders at all and may as well leave them off, right? "Finally, be aware that canard delta designs often have problems with the pressure center leading the CoM, causing the aircraft to want to flip backwards." Can you expand on this please? Why would delta canards offer problems where (I assume you mean) square ones wouldn't? What kind of other guidance is there besides aesthetics regarding canard design choice? Looking forward to round two of design this evening. Has anyone seen the 20-minute video by Kergarin Aerospace (Who is he on the forums? Anyone?) where he completes the Ultimate Challenge with an ISRU spaceplane? Ever since I saw that earlier this week, I have to admit that I've been obsessing over SSTOs and interplanetary spaceplanes. ...My new joystick should arrive in the mail by Monday. Hahaha.

Oh boy. Here's the album: http://imgur.com/a/uo8pD And here are the punch lines. Successful deployment: UNSUCCESSFUL dCoM measurements... Saved my Kerbals, though. Thank goodness. I've never killed Jeb. Full play-by-play of how I saved an aerodynamically destabilized spaceplane from a deadly flat spin included in the imgur album. Highly recommend. I think I need to use an inline cockpit with a fuel tank for the nose. That ought to balance my fuel much better. this was really frustrating, and it was only a 2t payload SSTO. V2 will have a redesigned front end.

Mk. 2 is largely the same, just with a cargo bay up front containing a simple 2t probe. - Added payload bay - Rebalanced some fuel--the precooler is further forward than the mk1 fuel tank to shift CoM further back - Slid the whole wing assemblies forward to offset the mass of the payload bay - Adjusted canards - Moved landing gear closer to new CoM... rotation speed was nearly 100m/s in the old position The CoM is much harder to manage here. With the payload, it's too far forward, and SAS struggles to keep my desired attitude. Without the payload and low on fuel, the CoM slides way too close to CoL and I worry that it's not going to be aerodynamically stable. Is the solution here to just manually balance fuel before reentering? What about scooting the runway CoM back a little? This was a hard "happy medium" for me to find. Also, why can't I alt+WASD trim anymore? Did that keybind get relocated for 1.2?

http://imgur.com/a/yeWI8 v4 was an improvement! I really liked the new canard design (Thanks @foamyesque) and the added wing area really helped. I've never seen my apoapsis increasing while my throttle is at idle cruising to space. Hahaha. Lift! I'm going to start modifying it to have a small cargo bay to use some of that extra delta v that I have left over. Stand by for more questions.

v4. The "changelog" is in the picture description.

Hey everyone! I've had my first success! Here's the album for the screenshots. (getting fancy with imgur...) http://imgur.com/gallery/fvFYs I don't think I need two shock cones now that I have one whiplash, so I'm going to substitute those for the tapered Mk1 LF tanks, and cap them off with small nosecones. I'll put a pre-cooler in front of the whiplash for my intake air. Is that enough? I also want to add a bit more wing, and that longitudinal stability I was talking about because it doesn't behave how I'd like during and after reentry. I was sure to balance the fuel to give myself a good CoM/CoL position for reentry, but I got irritated with the flapping around when I got down to flying speeds at 20km. Thank you everyone SO much for your help!! I'm interested in optimizing this ship a little more, then giving it a small cargo bay and payload. Then I'm going to move on to the RAPIERs and more substantial payloads. As for the optimization on this design, what input do you have? Did I fly it correctly? What sticks out as inefficient to you? The v4 redesign is almost done. Screenshots in a second.

Thank you, everyone! I'm actually a military pilot by trade, so increasing the angle of incidence makes a lot of sense to me--the only reason I haven't tried it on my SSTOs is because I wasn't sure KSP modeled that correctly. What a relief. If there are any other "advanced techniques" you think my SSTOs would benefit from, let me know! I just don't know how the KSP aero model really actually works (magic, I assume) so I don't know which real-life engineering solutions behave correctly in the game. On that note, area ruling only matters with FAR, correct? I know stock aero works in part-based magic, and FAR aero works in craft-based magic, but that's as far as my understanding goes. Any enlightenment folks could pass along for getting the most out of each model would be appreciated. I'll make those modifications when I get home this evening, and I'll update you all on the results.

Great! Thank you for the guidance. I really appreciate how patient SSTO guys are with the rest of us. I switched the pre-coolers for fuel tanks, and topped off all the other tanks on the ship. Is that too much? Should I trim some weight SOMEWHERE? Intuitively, I'd say yes, but I'm out of my expertise here. I followed the ascent you recommended--let the wings do most of the work, leveled off at 16km (didn't get much faster than before though... 1,200m/s or so) and then punched the nukes at 20km. I tried to let the nose rise, but it never got above 5 degrees or so... I seem to have very little pitch authority above the atmosphere, too, and couldn't give any effective nose-up input without aerodynamic instability--uncommanded yaw and extreme drag from a very high AoA. Nukes don't vector, so I'm not sure how to combat this. I was stuck within 5s of my Ap at 1,500m/s and 30km, and with my speed creeping up very slowly, and then I began to descend on that trajectory and started to slow down from the thicker atmosphere's drag below 25km. I don't have FAR installed, by the way. You know, 1.2 and all. That said, do I need to consider area ruling at all? Still no dice. Here's a screenshot of my edited ship.

Hi everyone. I'm an experienced KSP player and understand most of the science behind the rocket-building aspects of the game, and have hundreds of happy hours landing all over the Kerbol system in stuff that rode tall pointy things to space. Spaceplanes, however, have always eluded me. Well, I've decided to tackle that challenge, and want your expert advice on the way. I've watched some tutorials, noted design features in other people's successful ships, and have tried quite a few iterations without any success. I don't have the RAPIERs unlocked yet in this career save, but I kind of want to solve the SSTO challenge without them. Feels like I'll know the art better if I do it that way. I have a ship I'm happy with, and it's struggling to get sub-orbital. I can reach about 25km and 1,100m/s with my air breathers (why can't I get it higher or faster?), and the nukes just don't cut it to take it the rest of the way. I'm conscientious of effecient ascent profiles, but I may not be doing it right. I climb at about 45 degrees until around 10,000m, and then gently lower my nose to 10 degrees and ride the air breathers until they quit--when they reach about 5-10% thrust, I engage the nukes. Here's a picture of my spaceplane. Not all the fuel tanks are full, and it's aerodynamically sound both wet and dry. Help me, oh mighty wizards of the SSTO world. (also, how do I embed imgur pictures into a post...?) http://imgur.com/FaQggff [edit by Snark: put image inline]

Planetary terrain and textures. Please. Please, Squad. This has been on my mind a lot lately. I'm not the first or last person to say it, but I still think it bears being repeated: As much as I love them, the planets in KSP are just so disappointing to land and rove on for more than a few minutes after arrival. They look like they were designed in the assumption that nobody would actually go there to see them. If there was some real geological variety, visually distinct biomes, and unique surface features, and places to GO, it would add HUNDREDS of hours of surface gameplay in my book. I would spend as much time EVA on the surface as I do gathering orbital science, and might have a career save that lasts longer than "landed once on most planets." I believe that all of our complaints about the science system, pointless EVAs (I just got into KIS/KAS, so I look forward to that adventure), and lack of planetary variety would be solved if the planets were just more intriguing, visually diverse and appealing, and offered a visceral reason for going--the same reason we feel like we could spend days on lunar EVA when we look at Apollo footage. Our Moon was described as "magnificent desolation" by one of the first people to see it, and it inspires awe and intrigue and the drive to go there just by being there. Our Mun, however, is just "desolation." And so is Duna, and Moho, and Dres, and Tylo, and... the list goes on. At least Eve is purple desolation. Hahaha. On a more positive and remedial note, has anyone had any luck with stable terrain enhancement mods on 1.2? I'm open to solutions, limited only by my good-but-not-gaming computer.

@The Aziz Nope, not really. There are certain morphological (how individual words are assembled, to include suffixes) and phonological (how we pronounce the sounds within individual words) rules for English words in general, which you pretty much know intuitively as a native speaker of English (assuming English is your first language). You may not be able to recite these rules, but you notice when they're broken--because whether we feel like we are or not, our brains are grammar experts for the language that we speak, whether it's for the "academic standard" of grammar or a regional or familial variant. Grammar is a fundamental structural component of language, and brains know and apply it unconsciously. They even subconsciously raise red flags when it's incorrectly used by interlocutors or by yourself. Like, if I said "The thick Uranusian cloudtops" to make a relevant example, you'd say it doesn't sound right and you'd be correct, by standard English rules, because I've violated an aspect of the morphological process a word undergoes to be changed to an adjectival version of itself. You may not be able to define why it sounds wrong, but sound wrong it does. But beyond the inherent phonological properties of the English language, the rules about the suffixation in this context are pretty lax and open to preference, to a degree: - There are a handful of correct or mostly-correct suffixes to attach to make the word for a planet into an adjectival modifier. -ian/-ean, -ar/-al, etc. Language of origin affects which ones are more appropriate, but if there isn't a widely-accepted term for a celestial body already, then you can get away with whatever sounds fine from that list. - There are a few almost-correct but mostly-wrong suffixes that do make nouns into adjectives in other contexts but aren't appropriate in this context. -ous, -ly, -ish, etc. - ...And there are certainly really, really wrong suffixes. -ing, -able, -tion, and -licious, to name a few. So as you can see, there's plenty of wrong ways, but you can generally take your pick of the mostly correct ones. If you want to be narrow it down to the MOST correct ones, I guess they'd be the ones that are easiest for the English speaker to say, but that's not exactly objectively measured either.

Linguistics degree here. Sit back and I'll matter-of-factly tell you what sounds right to me, make some vague mention of root language morphological convention, and hope nobody notices that I'm no more qualified to define the standard adjectival nomenclature of a fictitious star system than Jeb himself. The way this morphological process works in real life is either 1) just slapping on the suffix, like in "Neptunian" 2) slapping on the suffix after a deletion of the end sound, like in "Uranian" 3) reverting to the original form of the root word then applying the root-language-appropriate suffix, like in "Jovian," "Lunar," and "Venerian" (which is more correct but less preferred than "Venusian," which was made up relatively recently to avoid sounding like it's related to venereal disease, believe it or not) 4) applying the suffix and reducing/blending/assimilating/otherwise-phonologically-changing the pre-suffixal sound, like in "Martian" ([z]->[sh]) and "Cererean" (for Ceres) ([z]->[r])--these follow phonological patterns and (usually) aren't totally arbitrarily decided. As you'll see if you check Wikipedia's "List of adjectivals and demonyms of astronomical bodies", there are a few suffixes that are considered "valid" for this stuff, but the most widely used by FAR is "-ian", which usually just gets slapped on there by dudes who were more interested in the scientific discovery of the celestial body itself than the adjectival derivation of the cool name they got to come up with for it. ...Anyway, here's what I think is the most conventionally correct way to refer to the planets and moons of the Kerbol system. Sorry some of them don't sound cool. Kerbol - Come on, it's "the Sun." Solar. Moho - Mohonian Eve - Evian Gilly - Gillian Kerbin - just Kerbin, in my opinion. Otherwise, Kerbian Mun - Munar Minmus - Minmal Duna - Dunian Ike - Ikal (small liberties taken, because "Ikian" blows and also sounds like it refers to a Swedish flat-pack furniture company) Dres - Dresian (dreez-ian) Jool - Joolian (I say Jovian because I prefer it, but some of you probably won't like that) Laythe - Laythian Vall - Vallian Tylo - Tylonian Bop - Boptic (see parenthetical statement after Ike) Pol - Polian Eeloo - Eeloovian But the bottom line (as with most queries about spoken language) is that it really doesn't matter. Language (especially English) is flexible and always changing, and what's correct is defined as the way people use it with one another. So if people all just say "Kerbin" as its own adjective even though it doesn't have the right ending, then once it sticks, that shapes the rule for what's "correct" in our kids' textbooks down the road. tl;dr - Say what you like! Adopt OP's list, my list, no list, or your own list--whichever you like best. This has been fun! Linguistics doesn't come up in my aerospace hobbies very often. Cheers!

(I can't quote you guys on my work computer, sorry, but you mentioned earlier) "but it's still nothing compared to how much plane changes cost in delta-v in real life"... I read from a technical write-up on the Space Shuttle a couple years ago that with every drop of OMS fuel on board burned toward the radial at AN/DN, it can manage only 2.3 degrees of inclination change before it's dry. 2.3 degrees! Time to learn how to launch straight into inclined orbits. Hahaha.

I can infer what "spread angle" means, I guess, but noting it has NEVER come up in my KSP experience. My KSP engineering style is "less is more," so I've always aimed for the lowest number of parachutes required and therefore have had to get a good feel for their behavior for effective landings... but are there dynamics of effective parachute usage that I'm not aware of...?

Looking forward to the KIS add-on that includes equippable hooks, a parts pack for 'thopter parts, and a new Kerbal stillsuit for our intrepid exporer, Kuad'Dib. Dare we ask for a new resource to mine for...?

@Triop (I can't quote your lander post from Tuesday for some work-computer reason, but) I'm feeling compelled to tell you that I'm losing my mind over it. Using a sideways utility bay for the body? It's beautiful. Every bit of it. I'd like to see what you have inside the bay, and I would LOVE to see any other ships/landers you have along that engineering/aesthetic theme. Light, good-looking landers are my favorite challenge in this game, and yours is my favorite to date.

Hello! I'm not PTNLemay, but I'm having the same problem and I'm quoting you because I've found trouble. I changed my .json file's repo path for SXT to the correct link as you advised, and I'm still running into the same problem. Do I need to change anything else on that file for my changes to stick, or to be valid? I couldn't find the 'auto-repo-update' setting under CKAN options... that might have something to do with it. Please advise. Also, if you don't mind, please explain to me what "repo" means so I can stop feeling sheepish. Thanks! EDIT: I fixed it! Now I'm just stuck with the same error for Taerobee, and can't find a stable mod release for it... Any pointers?

"Failed to download "https://github.com/Tantares/Taerobee/releases/download/v2.3/Taerobee.zip" - error: The request was aborted: The connection was closed unexpectedly." --and-- "Failed to download "https://github.com/Signatum/SXT/releases/download/v25.1/SXT25pre.zip" - error: The request was aborted: The connection was closed unexpectedly." CKAN can't install those two mods through the network for my 1.0.5, and RO/RP-0 depend on them. I can use CKAN, I just can't get my crucial mods. ...right? Does anyone have a solution to this?

Thank you!! I implemented all of your fixes and have a working, mechjeb-enabled RP-0 to play through. You're a hero. Some follow-up: I just made a new folder titled 000_Toolbar and put the files in there--does that work? I'm curious--why is the desktop any different from the C:/KSP folder I just made? -- I do still have a few mods not showing up in-game--the next one that's high on my priority list to fix is ScienceAlert. Any idea why that's not running? I'll load up the game and take some screenshots of my VAB/in-flight interfaces to post on here for reference, but it's mother's day and I won't get the opportunity for a little while. By the way, I really appreciate you taking the time to help me. I've always been impressed by the community on these forums, but man. You guys really are top-notch.

Hi, all. Never posted on these forums before (despite lurking for many ksp-addicted months--I like this community a lot!) so please forgive and be patient with me if I'm doing it wrong. I promise to be coachable. I messed up my ckan-managed version of 1.0.5 (RO/RP-0,etc) by letting my game version update to 1.1--and I didn't really understand the importance of backups or how to use them until now. Now my game isn't compatible with my crucial mods anymore because they haven't updated in the ckan network to 1.1 compatibility. I don't care to play unless it's on an RO/RP-0 modded copy, so until they update, I decided to manually build from a fresh 1.0.5(.1028) copy of the game (without ckan, gulp) by finding the last, most updated, 1.0.5-compatible versions of my desired mods. I picked through mod pages' changelists and github release logs to find what would have been the most current versions before the 1.1 update and added them onto my 1.0.5 copy... makes sense to me--let me know if that actually isn't how it works. I think I learned a lot about the mod process, and I'm confident that all of them are both correctly selected and correctly installed. Everything works mostly well (against all odds--I understand computer directories well enough, but I'm no programmer), and I have the RO and RP-0 that I wanted, plus some others. But it looks like some mods aren't showing up in-game--and some of the interface icons for the toolbars aren't showing up at all or are showing up blank. Namely, the ones that aren't showing up are Mechjeb2, KerbalEngineer, and MJ&KEforall. (How am I supposed to optimize my sounding rockets?!) I'm fairly certain that I have the "most recent versions" for every mod in use (the latest non-1.1 builds), and the game (finally) actually does load and run just fine, so the typical module manager and "multiple copies of mods" issues probably aren't the culprit anymore. Does anyone have any idea what the problem might be? And while I'm at it, I'm curious if someone can give me a run-through of what I need to know to better understand ksp mods. For example, what exactly are config files, .dlls, and whatever else I need to understand to be able to troubleshoot my own mod installs? Or, if such a resource already exists, I'd be happy to go check it out if I knew where to find it. Let me know if you need any more info. Here's a couple of pictures of directories you might find relevant, plus the list of .zip files that show mod version numbers: http://imgur.com/a/6Xe1v Thanks a lot, everyone. All of your feedback is appreciated!

Hey, I'm looking for the latest 1.0.5 compatible version of this mod. Github only has 1.1 support. Can anyone post what I'm looking for? Thanks!

Hey, finally--my first post in the forums that I've spent months observing. Hello, all! Your 1.0.5 compatible version of the mod was hosted on KerbalStuff (RIP), and therefore Github doesn't have it on the releases page--just the v2.3 for KSP 1.1. Can you possibly provide the latest 1.0.5-compatible download link for those of us still running that version? Thanks!