sal_vager

No you are right, I must have misread what was said before, a direct ascent is as you say, from launch to the destination. You say you have not seen anyone round out their orbit to reach the Mun? I have a few times, it looks like more trouble than it's worth but I see new players attempt this. I do as you describe, I get to orbit, then raise my Apoapsis to intercept the Mun, but I also do direct ascents occasionally, I guess they might be considered a Hohman Transfer from the ground.

You should re-read it, seriously, it's that good It's quite clear that the planet the Golgafrincham's "B" Ark crashed onto was prehistoric earth.

Squad have been looking into alternative payment methods for some time now, as PayPal is a problem for many, when they finally get something sorted out they may well add a proper gifting system, it's not high priority right now though.

Wow that is an old version, well before my time, just don't expect any Support questions or Bug reports to be addressed on this version

Hi cookiedamage, nice aircraft, you may be one of the few pilots to have designed a craft that needs down trim instead of up trim (at least that's how my planes turn out) You could try moving the wings rearwards a little so there is more lift at the back of the aircraft, another thing that might help would be less weight at the rear, or even add some extra wings at the back to help keep the back of the plane up.

Welcome to the KSP community mbar Check out this thread for what's planned in 0.17 Now go make some rockets, experiment, that's how I make mine

I would assume it was due to the airflow over the lander, causing it to act a little like a shuttlecock, you may be able to alleviate this by jettisoning those side mounted empty tanks or by using pylons instead.

As this thread is supposed to be for discussing 0.17 and it's planned features, I am going to have to ask you all to refrain from mentioning the "D" word here, but if you'd like to open an Off-Topic thread for speculative 0.17 features then by all means do so.

NASA and others have used Radioisotope Thermal Generators for several spacecraft, as they are very reliable and have no moving parts.

MilkTheFrog, what you describe is known as a direct ascent, when the Mun (or Minmus) is in the correct position it is possible to make a single continuous burn to intercept the other body, then do a second burn after you have changed Sphere of Influence, this was the method that was going to be employed by the Soviet N1 rocket btw. The more common method is to attain a parking orbit and then wait for the opportune time to begin a transfer burn.

Multiplayer is not likely for a long time, if ever, as the timewarp and rails system do not allow for it unfortunately.

Don't forget that docking will require a lot more than just attaching a few craft together in orbit, it'll need to play nice with persistence and it'll need to allow the transfer of resources, neither of which are trivial matters. Docking is not listed for 0.17, so it's safe to assume it will not be ready as Squad are working on other parts.

Just so you know, a standalone game would have to be free of any Squad copyrighted material, plus one of the big things about KSP is that it\'s not just another violent combat game, the market is flooded with such. A combat KSP would be very far from the spirit of this game, I for one prefer that there is no fighting.

If you use the bigger capsule and unload a crewman, you can rescue your stranded Kerbal, just try not to end up like this.

Really glad I could help kuulness Once you are done exploring the Mun you\'ll need to get back though. What I do is: Take off and fly west (270 degrees) and get into a roundish orbit When Kerbin drops below the horizon, throttle up, you want to build up your speed. Watch your orbit expand in an oval, you\'ll see it switch to Kerbin after a while. Keep thrusting, your Kerbin Periapsis will keep lowering, when it is at about 30 to 35 km above Kerbins surface, stop the engine. You are now on an aerobraking orbit, and when you hit the atmosphere you will automatically lose a lot of speed without having to use fuel. This is often enough to deorbit you, if not, you\'ll be pretty low anyway and another orbit won\'t take long, you shouldn\'t need to thrust again. Don\'t forget to open your parachute

A couple more tips on landing, throttle control can be tricky, getting it 'just right' is a pain as the throttle pip often moves too far, so you will have to keep an eye on your speed. Also, use capslock to turn on fine control, that helps a lot when landing, especially if you try landing without ASAS, though I recommend you have ASAS on your lander for now. Landing legs can indeed handle a 12m/s landing, just watch out for the bounce with smaller landers, which is why I suggest you land as gently as you can. Your shadow will help, but not on the dark side, so it may be a good idea to fit floodlights. Once you land, press X to kill your thrust.

Hi kuulness, what I do is this: Get into orbit (you can do this already) Wait till the Mun peaks over the horizon then thrust in the direction of travel, watch your orbit and when it changes to the Mun, stop thrusting, you can tweak the orbit though if you thrust a bit more. When you get to the Mun, wait till you get to the Periapsis and thrust facing backwards, this will make your orbit circular(ish) When you are opposite where you want to land, thrust backwards again to lower your orbit to about 10 to 15 km When at the low point, thrust again to stop moving sideways, then carefully lower yourself to the surface with the main engine and rcs if you brought it. Land carefully, less than 5m/s is good. Start breathing again

Wow that\'s a pain, I just read up on that bug, hmmm well I don\'t know what to suggest really, does this affect all craft or can it be worked around? I\'ll add the 0.15 version of the race back to the original post, so if you\'d like you can have a go using the older version of KSP.

Out of interest, has anyone witnessed this with a craft with no decouplers? Edited out a superfluous 'this'

The trick is not to rush the rendezvous, take care on the approach and you will save more time than if you rush, overshoot and are forced to try again.

Thanks for that Ziff, I had actually set up the decouplers in the usual way initially, but I thought this other setup would work and look tidier, I hadn\'t gotten that setup into orbit without hitting the g-force wall before, I have changed the .craft now though. I, like others, have gotten used to largely ignoring the g force meter as it hadn\'t had a bearing on my designs until now, the sudden explosion was decidedly unexpected but I\'ll learn from experience.

Last post May the 18th, and it\'s August now, plus leucome has made a total of 5 posts, I think he isn\'t going to take this mod any further and it\'s time this thread got some rest.

Starting to go off topic people, remember this is for the upcoming 0.17 release, but feel free to start a planetary science or literary discussion thread in Off-Topic.

Interesting suggestion Omega500, perhaps you can make a suggestion thread in the suggestion board? It\'s just a suggestion

I have just had this failure mode affect one of my designs, I launched at full throttle and throttled back when above 100m/s to conserve fuel, then completed the remainder of the flight until meco at a reduced throttle. It was when in orbit that I throttled up once again, and each time my craft would disintegrate, I believe it was the sheer power of three of the new large engines that were simply too much for the craft, especially with no atmosphere or gravity drag to cushion the forces. Everything exploded, not just the decouplers, and completing the orbit at 1/3rd power avoided the problem, I will refrain from using full power except when initially launching in future. The ship - Atacama Edit, Had to change the ship slightly, I thought I was clever with the arrangement of the decouplers but it turns out that fitment presents some new and 'interesting' problems of it\'s own.