Spricigo

So, i received this private message: [snip] That is not a response to the person that sent me this message. That is an open message of gratitude and acknowledgement to the great community I meet in this forum. I'm autistic. That means , among other things, that I have trouble with social interaction and sometimes express myself in ways that most of you will find awkward and hard to understand. As I struggle with the basic interactions most of you take for granted, I'm aware that some people take me for rude or stubborn but I lack the skills to amend or avoid those situations. Is painful sometimes. But that is not how I feel when interacting in this forum. This forum was always a safe space, where I was welcome, respected, included. I'm sure it will continue to be. That is why this is not a response to the person that expressed hate. Hate don't belong there. I will not let hate take me away from this awesome community and all the patience and support they always had to me. Maybe you didn't noticed but every interaction we had was very important. Thank you, for sharing the love to KSP with me.

I get from your other posts/threads that those are what you have available right now. However both are inadequate for docking. You want precision over anything else for docking, which usually means the smaller engines* you can get. If those are RCS thrusters it also means that you can keep the orientation while maneuvering in a different direction (technically, could be done with regular engines but is not practical ) *the lower weight may also result in more available deltaV because of how mass fractions work

The part is the old Rockomax_X200-32_Fuel_Tank. It is still in the game just hidden from the part list. You just need to [try to load anyway].

*Sighs* Is frustrating for people trying to help, too. They offered ideas, guides, explanations, clarifications, examples, counterexamples and yet you don't show any sign of attempting to follow the instructions given. Not an image of a craft you put together for then to examine, not an indication of a specific step you have trouble with. Just a vague "How I do the whole thing?" You are making so hard to help you that is no surprise if people are giving up. They are all volunteer and you seems to expect more effort to teach you to build a rover than what they put in their own craft. But I'm not saying that to berate you. I don't blame you for what I believe is just a communication issue. However you need to make an effort to provide better feedback than you provided so far. I currently don't have the answer you are looking for, but I'm confident that we can find out together. So I will ask a few questions, to get some hints of what you already have figured out, what you still have trouble with and how we can point you in the right direction: 1. What you expect to be done easier with rover than with a different vessel? 2.Which mission objetives you planned for that specific rover? 3.Which parts are available? ( We may work with something like 'up to ## science points nodes unlocked' ) 4.There is any part you decided your rover must have? 5Are using any mod that change gameplay? 6.Are you familiar with the move, rotate and re-root tools, with symmetry modes, angle snap, and the CoM indicator? 7.Do you have Advanced Tweakables enabled and are you familiar with the option it brings? 8.Have you tried to build the rover? What was the last step you managed to do? Provide a screenshot of your craft.(what you got so far)

As I said, you may have other priorities, but space exploration don't have much use for me. Considering that you are dealing with stations, Advanced Flight Control(for RCS) become more important. (Didn't made into my list since I don't really use station until later.)

The counter argument is welcome as, it goes without saying, the idea is to allow the new player to make his own decision, aware of the several factors that may be important. Also, the links in my sig will show that recovering is not out of question for me. @paul_c are you aware of The KSP Caveman Challenge? Seems like something you'd enjoy.

I will instead suggest that you get a craft optimized for docking practice and try it on a sandbox save. Docking is already hard enough to learn without the need to deal with misaligned/unbalanced thrust. The problem is not that docking requires superior hand-eye coordination or reaction time (it doesn't) but it requires to get in a different mindset than the one that we use for earthbound activities.

I confess ,without an image, I'm having a hard time figuring out what importance it might have.

Nice that you solved the issue with your little rocket. In any case I have a bit of info that ma be useful for you in the future. The blue marker is the Center of Lift, Ut only accounts for parts that have a lifting ratting. In the stock game you need to guess where the center the drag is by the general look of the craft and some knowledge of parts that may have skewed drag values attributed to it.

Nah, we just have some fixation with "efficiency", if using the expensive* probe core as a structural element works for you than it is all fine. If that is the case it still is an aerodynamic issue. The position of the "draggy parts" relative to the CoM makes the craft flip. All the craft the OP presented so far have a combination of undesirable characteristics: Multiple heavy engines at the bottom, light and draggy fairing at the top, a long 'neck' between the fairing and the center of mass and lack of fins. That is basically the recipe for a flipping rocket. *Even if that it is a sandbox/science , the extra mass and bulk will take its toll from the craft performance.

That is not how it goes. If you care to find out, build a expendable craft and use a chronometer to find out how much real life time it takes to fly the mission. Then adjust the craft to make it recoverable and find how much it takes to fly the mission in that configuration. The recoverable craft will use more time, since it need to carry the extra mass of the recovering equipment and the adjusted trajectory itself will further hinder it in most cases. As I said, it is not a big deal for a small suborbital hopper, but quite noticeable for a large orbital craft. Also, not something that you "shouldn't do", just be aware that is a thing and make an informed decision on what is better for you.

A few things to unpack there: There is a weighting system that make more likely to get offers of contracts of the types you regularly do and less likely to get offer from contracts that you refuse. They usually don't become super-rare or super-common but there are some other conditions to unlock contract and it may be the case that the prevalence of tourism contract is a combination of not many types of contracts available and the weighting system. You may not feel ready to accept and risk to fail a satellite contract yet, but you may simulate doing one. Just build a small, unmanned craft* and try to manipulate your orbit to roughly match the "required" orbit, I other words, burn towards different directions(pro/retrograde, nomal/antinormal, radial in/out) at different point of your orbit and see how it goes. That will build confidence you need to do it for real. At the point your career is, based on what you told/showed in the other thread, those types of contract may be about to be unlocked: rescue mission (need Astronaut complex lvl2), Station deployment contracts (need part docking port unlocked). Rescues will require you to learn how to rendezvous, (new players often have trouble with that) while station contracts only requires you to be capable to launch a 'station' big enough (but are kinda of rare). Yep. That is the Opportunity Cost I mentioned in the other thread. Your time have the value of the best thing you could be doing, doing something else have the cost of not doing that best thing. IMO the only possible reason to not go to the Mun already (and I don't think is a good one) is that tourist want to go where you already are and it may be a bit of an issue if tourist contract is your main revenue source. *If you provide a screenshot of your current tech tree, we may help to design a craft for that task.

Hi-five Couldn't agree more. But I think @VoidSquid is trying to address a different point that is also valid, the perspective of a brand new player (let's face it, not a vivid memory for us anymore) Yes, the veteran told you is a simple procedure, that you only need to pay attention to a couple of things while the craft fly itself into orbit. But you have no idea what information you should be getting from those things or if the values you are getting are still close enough to the values the veteran suggested. Are you still doing it correct? Maybe you should "do something" instead of watching the rocket fail. The veteran told you that you shouldn't, just keep calm and observe those few important things but the veteran is not piloting that craft, so you will do something. You will panic. Tell me, that is not something that happened to you at some point? Maybe not in KSP, but at anything you were inexperienced at the time. It certainly happened to me... more than I like to admit.

There is some advantages to be able to launch in a more circular orbit but is far from a disaster if your orbit is not perfect (specially while you are still learning how to do it). You just raised the orbit more than necessary, probably will have a slighter higher reentry velocity and if you are going somewhere else you may lose a bit of efficient in your transfer burn. Anyways, the procedure @Popestarexplained should work just fine. However the ideal gravity turn is something else: get the initial tilt right and the craft will steer itself into orbit, no need to watch the throttle, just a more powerful rocket tilt more/earlier while a less powerful will tilt less/later. The craft need to be aerodynamic stable or at least stable enough to hold prograde with SAS (needs and advanced probecore or high leve pilot) Now, it requires quite a bit of practice/experience to pull it off with any kind of consistency.* Definitely not something a new player should be too worried about. Instead learn how to make corrections when your turn is less than perfect: If your apoapsis is not raising, pitch up (if that happens right after the launch, consider instead to revert and start with less tilt) If your apoapsis and time to apoapsis is increasing too quickly, pitch down(mostly early in the launch) or throttle down(mostly later on). If your apoapsis is increasing but your time to apoapsis is not, throttle up. *Personally, I like to design my launch vehicles (both rockets and spaceplanes) to not require any steering input, but I'm unaware of anyone else that follow that design choice.

For a moment I was worried that you meant cost per launch (total-recovery). Gladly, it is not the case. On the other hand I'm a bit disappointed to find out that it is not capable of reaching orbit. (The tourist can complete the suborbital and orbital requeriment in the same launch, you don't need to launch him/her twice) Have you considered the Opportunity Cost? In a craft that just do a suborbital hop it make little difference but as the range increase it also increase the time and effort to make it recoverable. So, while you would expend more per launch with expendable vehicles, you also end up earning more per unit of time because you skip (most of) the recover procedure resulting in more trips in the same time. Now, KSP is pretty skewed toward the rewards. Most* contracts can be paid for with a fraction of the advance and the rewards are several times more than that. Cost of the craft matter very littler if a single flight pay for a dozens of such craft. *The randomness of some requirements may lead to some ludicrous difficult contracts.

As a general rules: Science First (as @VoidSquidsuggested). Is often a good idea to even 'rush' a more expensive node if it unlock science instruments) New parts before bigger parts. E.g: you can use multiple smaller crew parts instead of a bigger crew part Among the 90 science points node I'd prioritize: Electrics (solar panels, okto probecore) Miniaturization (jr docking port) Advanced Construction (fairing) Fuel Systems (Fuel duct and fuel crossfeed) Propulsion Systems (tiny engines) In that order. That goes well with my preference for satellites and the eventual station for funding at that stage of the game.yyou may prefer to do something else and in that case some other nodes may be more useful. . Well, I suppose it is a good rocket then. The problem is that it becomes obsolete too quickly. With a couple of launches one get enough funds to do a Mun/Minmus mission. which is enough to unlock the parts for a more capable' excursion bus' or the nodes for station/satellites.

That one is in my "update pending" list for a looonnnnng while, but is suppose to still work . Granted is not the best looking craft out there, but simple, cheap, easy to use and effective it is. feel free to use or reverse engineer it. The key idea is: craft want to go heavy part first while in atmosphere. In your craft and also mine that means the command pod with the parachutes attached, Rather than fight it, I let it happen. Also I present the blunt draggy end to the airflow which allow for it slowdown nicely. Another low-tech solution is to have an open service bay acting as a improvised air-brake,. Also, try to not get much higher than you need to be (a 71x71km orbit is more than enough to complete the contract) and for the return just lower your periapsis to about the ground level. Finally, let me echo that bit there: More often than not, 'wasting' some Funds to save Time and Effort is a very good deal.

An option that gives extra attachment node for fairings. Not sure, but maybe it needs Advanced Tweakable enabled.

It aso seems that you are not doing a gravity turn, thus wasting a lot more fuel than necessary. And quite possible you fell for the the 'big is better' fallacy too. also in practice as demonstrated here:

Mind you, is a lot simpler to use the [set position] to move the craft somewhere else.

Seems you have it covered then. It also seem there is nothing with the satellite design that should be causing the issue. Maybe a corrupted file, a validation may solve the issue if that is the case. Failing that, i'm out of ideas.

I'd rather have proper structural parts.

Yes. The command pod is a lot heavier than heat shield and material bay, that will make the craft flip during reentry. (you may have better luck with the engine attached, but then the heat shield is useless anyway)

From the same thread: If someone is more interested in the calculation I also found this old forum post: