Tyko

Several Missions running - Iota crew transfer returns from SkyLab 1 using older tech 2 crew capsule - the crew is happy in there for up to 7 days New 5 crew capsule works great for 2-3 Kerbal crews heading out to Ceti - gives a little more elbow room for longer 12 day transits. As a side note, a 2 crew lander can, inverted under a mk 1-2 capsule, makes for a great design. it still has a low enough CoM to orient correctly during reentry. Valentina nails a precision landing dropping her 2 crew lander within 5 meters of the robotic target.

Is that planet Thalia from GPP?

agreed...I don't timewarp for science. Instead I set up my MPL and then play normally - using time warp to move to the next step of various missions. I run missions in parallel with various ships flying around so my usual maximum time warp is about 10-12 days. There's always something to do. Occasionally I check back at my MPL, transmit science and load it back up with data. Using this method I get a couple hundred science every 50 days or so and it's quite manageable. It feels more like long term science research is happening.

the "person concerned" was me and I had quite a bit of cooling present. Entire craft worked just fine under 1.2.1. When I upgraded to 1.2.2 suddenly I was getting massive overheating with the same ship.

it seems to depend which antenna you put on first. On the station in question I'd added my relay antenna first which sucked a lot of power despite having lower power alternatives. Sending about 500 hundred science cost over 10000EC to send. That was higher than my entire power budget for a darkside transit of the moon. When my lander docked - which had a simple direct antenna - the station could suddenly transmit science for a much lower EC cost As far as using Labs...I adjusted them to put out significantly less science and then dropped my game-wide science rate down to 50%. As a game rule I only process science on a lab that's in orbit around the body where the science was collected - a Minmus station researches Minmus science. I can move the station to another place later, but I never bring science from one planet / moon to a station somewhere else. This balanced out science points. I wish the game had a better balanced solution, but my solution is fun for my style of play and isn't OP because it's a lot of (fun) work to build and maintain stations with life support mods running. Here's my MM cfg if you're interested: The other trick is to lower the data capacity of the lab. Because of the whacky math the game uses your data -> science conversation rate rises exponentially as you have more data. If you lower the data cap you can keep the lab from churning out 50 science a day - which is a bit annoying. My lab is set to a data capacity of 500 and it churns out about 6 science per day when filled. This is a very manageable production level.

Talking about accuracy. I didn't realize that Apollo 12's lander - Intrepid - was able to land within 70 meters of the Surveyor 3 probe. I've been practicing landings for a year now and I can finally get within a few hundred meters. Apollo did it on their second moon landing. https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/lroc_20090903_apollo12.html

okay @bewing I'll take the bait Fairings - just like most other things in KSP - do have a bit of a learning curve, but they help immensely if your payload isn't pointy and aerodynamic. For weight distribution make sure the fuel tank right behind the fairing is the last one to empty - either by having a circularization stage or by setting it's fuel priority lower than the rest in the stack. With an aerodynamic payload and a full fuel tank up front it's usually easy to make your craft stable.

I've used Allow Partial with MPLs in 1.2.2. It just acts a bit odd because every time you get a unit of power the antenna squirts some data and drops power back to zero. So it's a LOT of stops and starts, but it does work. To prevent that in the future I just reduced the max science my labs could hold to 250. The MPL will stop generating science until I clean it out, but at least I'm not running out of power.

There's a bug in 1.2.2 with drills overheating. This might be your problem. It's covered in this thread

You can turn it off in the Settings menu. You also don't need a relay antenna on a probe. As long as it has a direct antenna with sufficient power to talk to Kerbin you'd be fine

If you're shooting for Apollo level accuracy you can do pretty well with just the mk1 eyeball and stock tools. They certainly didn't have .001 precision on their maneuvers either. They also didn't have the benefit of maneuver nodes.

adding to what @mikegarrison said...right click on your antenna and look for Require Complete and switch it to Allow Partial. if you have multiple antennas you may want to switch them all. It's a strange process because your power will rise just above zero, the antenna will squirt some data and drain the battery again..so it takes a while, but it works.

here's a stock solution that's only slightly cheaty - use the F12 menu to put a reference object in orbit around the target body. Call it a navigation beacon or some such. The orbit command places the object in a perfectly circular orbit with zero degree inclination

I've never built planes and flown around Kerbin outside of a few experiments in KSC airspace. I've been 99% focused on rockets. Also, I haven't orbited a spaceplane.

Is your space aquarium made of transparent aluminum? That explains why spiders have such a hard time getting into orbit...

SkyLab 1 completed 6 months of scientific research over Iota with 3 crew changes. SkyLab 2 is destined for Ceti orbit and incorporates many improvements based on new science and learnings from SL1. Improvements in solar panels and battery tech dramatically reduced the number of systems necessary to power the station. Experimental hydroponics bays being used to extend life support resources. SkyLab1 w/Gemini crew transfer vehicle and 1 crew lunar lander SkyLab2 w/ 2 crew lunar lander and auxiliary fuel tanks

Just (accidentally) set up a really fun corkscrew flyby:

A few quick shots of Tellumo Survey - just arrived to collect details on the planetary surface (and harvest that sweet science) EDIT - wow, 1000 science just from high/low orbital passes... (Tyko eyes Advanced Science Tech with a gleam in his eye)

I thought of Kerbol right away when I read about this. First, just the overall small size - more like Kerbol than Sol in dimensions. Then the fact that the artist chose to depict the planets as having a similar make-up to many of the planets in KSP. Granted, this isn't likely what they look like, but it was amusing that the artist's portrayal bore a resemblance to Kerbol. Sadly it's about 800,000 years away at Voyager 1 speeds. NASA needs to invent time acceleration.

Not quite. A surface ship is floating at the interface between two very different densities - the air above and the water below - this causes it to bob up and down along with waves. A submersible underwater doesn't bob up and down in the same way. A vacuum dirigible in Jupiter's atmosphere should be just as stable (or unstable) as a hot air balloon - subject to winds and localized changes in atmospheric pressure, but not bobbing up and down. EDIT: I misunderstood your use of "bob up and down". The ship's displacement changes as it takes on or removes cargo. You're right about that. The sub or vacuum dirigible would do the same thing except it controls it's displacement by taking on or removing water (or atmosphere for Jupiter) Didn't mean to hijack the thread I guess it would be possible to colonize Jupiter's atmosphere. Have to figure out how to avoid the big storms

Assuming you have a rigid structure that you could evacuate of gas, you could control buoyancy by pumping gas in and out. It's just a submersible

Assuming you can make them they'd work in Jupiter's atmosphere. The question is "how deep within the atmosphere do you go before you hit equilibrium between lift and weight". It's really a submarine for all intents and purposes

I wonder if you could make a vacuum balloon (filled with nothing) that would create enough lift for a reasonable size. We don't have the material science to create it today, but perhaps in the future.

Hmm...just a few SF references going on here. The two-part ship design is reminiscent of the Jedi ships used in the 1st three SW movies. And...the "guy with the spear" reference reminded me of Excession by Iain M Banks. Great designs

I'm doing the same, with Life Support (USI-LS) enabled, a capsule will only be comfortable for the crew for about 7 days. This is barely enough time for a quick landing on the Mun before they have to head home. Not really enough for a jump to Minmus. Putting a small station up gave my crews a place to stretch their legs before landing. Adding research capability helped to further justify them.