Spricigo

Of course it affects all autopilots. Its something that change in 1.3 update.

@herbal space program you will notice that as the velocity of the vessel in the planet SoI increases the effectiveness of the gravity assist decrease. So, while you will be able to change you inclination a lot I'm the first few passes, later several passes will be needed to a noticeable effect. It can still be done but you will need a lot of patience and a mod to allow higher rates of time warp is highly advisable.

@Kerbal101 Antenna Ratting vs Max Link Range Antenna Ratting is a value used to determine Vessel Antenna Power *(how powerful a particular point in the chain is) . For a craft with a single antenna VAP is equal to Antenna Ratting. Max Link Range is how far two craft can be and still communicate. It depend on the VAP of both crafts. So you are wrong when you say : In fact a craft with only the built-in antenna (VAP=5k) in minmus will be out of range and even one with a Communotron 88-88 will only be I'm range up to 158Gm away. *Relay Antenna Power is the same but without taking Direct antennas in consideration.

seem that you (and also @Kerbal101 ) are under (unfortunatelly very common) misundertandment of how antenna ranges works. Maybe take a look at what the wiki says about commnet. In short: each antenna have an [antenna rating], and can be of Direct or Relay type. Each craft will have a [vessel antenna power] that will depends on the antenna rating and combinability expoent of all antennas in the vessel. Also there will be a [relay antenna power] that will take in account only relay antennas and used when the that vessel is used as a relay (aka is not the craft you are in control) Range between two crafts or a craft and a ground station will deppend on the vessel antenna power of each side. the important bits of math: Vessel Antenna Power = Strongest Antenna Power * ( Sum of Antenna's Powers / Strongest Antenna Power ) ^ ( Average Weighted Combinability Exponent for Vessel ) Range = SQRT ( Antenna Strength 1 * Antenna Strength 2 ) you arre using 2x HG-5 in your relays, that gives you VAP=RAP=8.4M It can talk to a lvl3 ground station up to 1.45Gm away (way out of kerbin SoI but not even close to a Duna or Eve) Two of those relay can communicate to each other Up to 8.4Mm away (about 2/3 of the distance between Kerbin and Mun) A craft with a singlle communotro 16 (VAP=500k) can communicate with this relay up to 2Mm away (90% Minmus SoI radius) As mentioned above Range depend on the Antenna power of both craft (or craft and ground station). Important to notice there is the difference of VAP and RAP. Vessel Antenna Power is the power of your current vessels and take in consideration the contribution of all* antennas. Relay Antenna Power is the power of the vessel that is just actin as a mid point in between your active vessel and KSC only relay antennas are take in consideration. And yes you need to uprgrade for interplanetary mission. In fact the whole idea of build a relay network in kerbin's orbit make little sense considering how the system works, the ground station will have stronger signal and reach further (except if you disable extra ground station or refuse to upgrade the tracking station). Relay anennas are usefull for two motives:1. to deal with LoS issues 2.to allow the use of smaller antennas on ligther vesssel. Relays near Kerbin will not provide significant bettter field of view or range. So you should build the relay network near your destination, where they can reach the opposite side of the celestial body and the vessels with low VAP. *Just happens that the built in antennas and the Communotytron 16S don't make any contribution if others stronger antennas are present.

Was unaware of this, good to know. Was a long time since I used KAS (since I found the functionalities I'm interested better provided by other mods. A matter of taste.).

When something in real life interrupt my playtime. What? Do you mean KSP may cause stress? Never noticed that.

Worth trying but I see a possible problem there: the docking ports may be well in the middle of the stack for what the game is concerned and KAS don't allow to detach a part with other parts attached to it. Ship save splicer can be a good option for a quick fix, allow you to save a ship in flight, edit in the VAB/SPH to correct the issue and load the corrected ship. Chances are that some other program sequestered that key-binding. Have you tried both right alt and left alt?

I didn't said keeping tracking station at lvl2 and using DTS-M1 was the perfect solution, just a viable solution. For the sake of analysis 4x DTS-M1(diminish returns and all but give a nice range boost) and a lvl2 ground station will result in a maximum range of 16.8Gm. So, by the law of cosines that result in Duna being reachable 50° ahead or behind Kerbin. (Eve? 90° ahead or behind,) According a transfer planner the ideal (ballistic) transfer from kerbin to duna, deparing on year1,day236, have flight time 258 days with transfer angle of 162°and in this time Kerbin will describe 218°. The maneuver requires 1690m/s and, unfortunately, will put us a bit out of range (~10°). Ok, lets click in the map the transfer planer presented us, a bit earlier and a bit faster and I found: departure on year 1, day 236, flight time 239 days, transfer angle 167°, in this time Kerbin will describe 202°. This maneuver cost 1970m/s and put us comfortable within communication range. Better yet is that the difference in the ejection burn is s measly 50m/s so, if we can use Ike's gravity or Duna's atmosphere for capturing, we will hardly notice the difference in cost. Notice that is hasty done analysis using a bunch of webapps, aggressive rounding and some out-of-my-paints assumptions. It would not surprise me if there is a brain-fart somewhere in this (if someone find and point it, appreciated) and I strongly suggest someone facing the pratical problem doing his own analysis. OTOH all that is ignoring the possibility to make the transfer when at the transfer window appear, plan the capture and position the vessel while still in communication range, capturing without signal under limited control, and waiting for communication to be re-established for further activities.

DTS-M1 or RA-2 and lvl2 tracking station works fine. One just need to limit the activities while Duna/Eve is near (and maybe use 2-3 antennas instead of a single one)

Fair enough. Personally I (in my limited experience) never noticed any discrepancies in performance between [launched from VAB/SPH], [reverted to launch] and [loaded from quicksave]. Testing other people vessel its something I rarely do and am unable to do at the present time. Wish you luck with that.

Maybe you should consider to share your craft at the spacecraft exchange or kerbalx The tutorial forum are more for 'how to do [stuff]' while your post seems more like "that is my [stuff]".

Well, If is already in the bugtracker there is not much else for us, forum dwellers' do in that regard. Notice that, fair or not, often bug only occur for some system (an specific OS, processor, etc) What we can do is offer some help in designing a spaceplane that can perform as required. If you may provide a picture* of your current vessel, and a brief description of the objectives (e.g. payload in LKO, deltaV left on LKO), people can try to figure out how to improve it. *pictures are often better than craft file, since people unable to log into KSP can still give advice based on their experience. And cases where a slight improvement solves the issue are not rare.

I'm 100% sure you never tried to crack a fairing open. for perpective Of course the base is much less resistant, but destroying a part in the middle of the stack will have its own detrimental consequences.

I'd say that as long you don't make it a habit, 'debugging a player mistake' is fair. In any case that is up to each one to decide. Not 100%, but I'm pretty confident that astronauts can extend solar panel regardless of EC.

You can use [infinite electricity] from the cheat menu to deploy fairings and extend panels (/antenna?) . If you prefer a non-cheating solution, you can use the Advanced Grayingham Unit to connect to the vessel. Kerbal in EVA can activate parts of an otherwise uncontrollable vessel but I'm not sure [deploy fairing] is among the possibilities.

Well, I understand you. But landing on the grass and taxing to the runaway provides better recovery rate than crashing in the runaway.

Fair point. But I keep mine: KSP vessel performance is not that far from what you expect from real life counterparts. However discrepancies will exist because of intrinsic divergences in the environment. Engines in game don't need to trade performance for reliability, an unexpected change in cost of materials and fuel will not happens, and the list goes on. Those are factors that, while important in real life, don't need to be made present in game and devs (and mod makers) don't want to bring it (maybe not even had realised some of these ). I understand it can be frustrating if you are looking for that kind of depth. But other than searching for, or even develop it yourself, a mod that implement it, I don't see much that can be done.

Probes, or flags, or map it with a mod. Also keep in mind that the grass at the side of the runaway is flat and don't explode no matter how hard your landing is.

Not for lack of capable engines, but for several other factors. e.g. Noise is an important reason to not use supersonic airliners in real life but in KSP is totally irrelevant.

Notice that the "Expires in ..." refer to the time limit to accept an offered contract (visualised or not). The deadline to complete an accepted contract, if exist, will be in the contract details window. Also, don't be afraid of actively declining a contract you find uninteresting. The actual penalty is pretty small.

I was under the assumption that one cannot use RCS under limited control. @BjM Duna will be around 3Gm away from kerbin at closest approach, for the sake of analysis lets suppose it will not much farther away at the time of your mission. Lets see your options: 1.Going for a kerbaled mission with a pilot will give you full control of the craft regardless of commnet coverage, the drawback is the added mass to support the crew. A orbit Duna and return mission requires less deltaV (but a bit more precision) than Land on Mun and return. In any case you should consider bringing more fuel so you can explore a bit, visit Ike and so on. 2.Upgrading the tracking station to lv3 and piling up15x HG-5 will provide a max range over 3Gm 20x will give 3,43Gm. 3.Unlocking the DTS-M1 (or RA-2, in the same tech node) will allow a range of 10Gm between the craft and a lvl2 craft station. Requires 160 science and unlock a few other parts (personally I find the HECS probecore and the TR-2V decoupler very handy) 4.Just send the craft, you don't need commnet control for a flyby, and if Duna don’t disturb the trajectory too much the craft will eventually come back near Kerbin to transmit the science. If you set a maneuver node and point the craft in the required direction with antecedence you will have no problem following it even with limited control.

You need to meet all conditions simultaneously. In your case activate a RT-5 engine while your altitude is between 30-34km AND your speed is between 450-530m/s What matters is when you ignite the engine (either from context menu ou staging). Suppose you activate it at 29.800m and 445m/s, keeping it running until it climbs to 30km and speed up to 450 don't complete the contract. OTOH activating at 31km and 470m/s work even if you don't have fuel to feed the engine. Also notice that the game pick random requeriment for the test contracts which may result in contracts being inconvenience (test a Kickback in orbit above 150km) or downright difficult (test a Kickback bellow 3km and speed between 1120-1230m/s) make sure a contract is worth the trouble before accepting.

Zaltanic is a stock company. But the "Orbital construction study", I'm pretty sure is not. Hopefully it will be in the description of some part under [science] or a custom category used by the relevant mod (e. g. [Construction] or [industry]).

*shrug* I visited enough to lack of communication over 50% of the surface to be a issue. Anyway, I don’t think I need to visit any part of Kerbin's surface to ask about a challenge I was considering to participate.

A bit curious about your reasoning for those parameters. Not efficiently using the antenna power or providing a great coverage. Ok, that may not be the point of the challenge, maybe focused more on the particularities of launching multiple satellites in different inclination. But seems a bit odd to talk about "great connection" and "covering the entire surface" when your rules are vague enough to allow for 50% of the surface to be in the shadow.