Zo San

Barar: you were exactly correct. The filter was set to "Compatible" which is why Precise Node wasn't showing up. After switching to "All" I can see it and now I can properly uninstall and install everything with CKAN. I had no idea about the filters button until you pointed it out and am feeling a bit dim for not noticing it earlier. Thank you very much for the help! Really appreciate it.

I recently booted up KSP again, and for the most part I have everything working. The one problem I have is that Precise Node (the mod) is not showing up in CKAN. This causes several downstream problems, most notably when trying other mods that conflict with it. CKAN does not let me install Precise Maneuver, for example, because it conflicts with Precise Node. Since Precise Node is not showing in CKAN, I cannot uninstall it through CKAN. I tried manually uninstalling Precise Node (removing the folder from game data), but even after a refresh or full restart, CKAN is still convinced that Precise Node is installed. Manually removing Precise Node and manually putting in Precise Maneuver via file explorer does work in game, but I would like to have CKAN handle everything ideally. Anyone else having this problem or know what might be causing it?

Sounds very cool, I am going to look at adding it right now. Feels like it might make engineers a bit more pertinent too depending on how it works. I like the idea of bringing the actual probe that's been there with all its equipment back to ground so I'm going to try to add a parachute via KAS and if that doesn't work for some reason I might try to add a docking port and eventually get a shuttle to it.

I've occasionally thought about the EVA science grab and have another question regarding that for anyone that knows: if you have a probe with some science parts and experiments on board and you end up in a situation like this (brought probe back to LKO, have an astronaut grab the science and get into a re-entry craft and bring the experiment info down with them to Kerbin), will you still get the multipliers for 'recovering a vessel' that has been to XYZ places? While you are physically bringing the experiments back 'in person' as opposed to transmitting, you also are not bringing the physical vessel/equipment that was at the actual location, so the answer doesn't seem clear cut to me. I don't think I have the claw yet but I will look into it, sounds like a very cool solution. Does its grip strength resemble that of say a docking port? I.e. if the heat can be managed, would the grip strength be good enough to keep everything physically attached well? I will look into KIS/KAS, although I'm not keen on installing loads of mods that functionality sounds fantastic. Many thanks for the help!

Mistakes were made. I've got a probe going to Minmus, jam-packed with science bits and designed for re-entry at Kerbin... except for the completely missing parachute of course. Additionally, there is no docking port for the eventual orbital rendevouz with a space plane to bring it down with (I haven't messed around with space planes yet but I imagine simply fitting it into a cargo hold where it would be bouncing around on the way down without docking support doesn't sound particularly safe). Any way out of this? Would love to be able to rendevouz with it and have an astronaut MacGuyver a parchute or even a docking port onto it but I imagine that's impossible?

Otis, thank you so much for that reference! Loaded to the brim with helpful advice and it already has me thinking very differently about how to approach this particular transfer as well as others in the future. Going at the apoapsis so that you can align the orbital planes at the same time is brilliant and will make it much less of a headache. To answer your question: yes I usually start with stock maneuver node changes just to get in the ballpark, then I usually switch to the precise node mod to fine tune. Haha I think you might be right. I might also just be doing it wrong. But I suspect it might be related to how fast Moho moves; most likely even small errors on my part will cause me to miss what would otherwise have been a decent window for any other planet.

I've been looking through a lot of guides and especially tutorial videos but I can't find anyone that discusses this in the detail I am looking for. I set up alarms with Kerbal Alarm Clock (fantastic mod btw and I think the functionality should be built into vanilla, but that's another story for another day) so that I have a good idea of when a transfer window will be available. I assume that alarm timing tells you when you should be leaving (roughly). The problem is then, that I don't know what the best technique for burning is. Let's use Moho as an example since it's a tricky one. My best understanding based on what I've read and seen is that you want to burn prograde from a Kerbin orbit a while after Kerbol has come over the horizon from the ship's point of view. With a bit of fine tuning this does seem to get the best solar periapsis. I've actually seen someone accomplish a Moho encounter by doing basically this and ONLY burning prograde, and I have no idea how he accomplished this black magic because I find at the very least you also need an ascending/descending node adjustment down the line. But even when I am able to line up my trajectory with Moho's orbit after an adjustment, and even though I've left at the window that the alarm gave me, I find I'm not able to get an encounter around the far end of the orbit (which I assume is where you're supposed to be looking since it's the area that would use the least dv to get to). So instead I have to get there, burn retrograde to approximately line up with its orbit, and then shift inside or outside to eventually capture, but by that point I've wasted a lot of dv and I know I'm doing something wrong. It doesn't help that when you have to work with two maneuvers (a big burn from Kerbin to get the solar periapsis down, and then an adjustment burn for the ascending/descending angle much later) it becomes difficult to switch between the two to optimize since changing the prograde burn often shifts where the ascending/descending node will be. TLDR: What's the best method for burning to an interior planet like Moho when the alarm says a transfer window is available? Where am I going wrong with my method of burning prograde from Kerbin to get the solar periapsis down, and then matching the orbital angle at an ascending/descending node such as to attempt an encounter at the far end of its orbit? Thank you for reading!

Whoops, posted at the same time as you bewing so I missed your response earlier. That's really good to know that they don't waste charge when they're not in focus/flight mode and makes all of this a much smaller deal than I thought it was. I do have two panels on the probe but sadly both facing the same direction... not entirely sure what I was thinking when I built this craft but I sure will be changing the design drastically before launching any more like it haha!

Thank you for the responses! You're right, I noticed when I came back to my probe that I had set to spin it was no longer spinning - a bit of a shame that the rotation isn't tracked but I understand that would probably be a performance hog. This probe I've got going to Moho has the static panels on one face only (a design oversight from focusing far too much on engines, ascent, orbits, etc and not enough on the important utilities layout). I guess I will have to keep an eye on it for... a long time I have some cheap satellites that do have the panels on several faces though - will try the normal orientation on those. Thank you for the recommendations.

TLDR: What's the best method to avoid a probe running out of electric charge (and therefore becoming uncontrollable) over long durations of not monitoring it if you only have static solar panels? I've recently sent a probe to Moho and I did so with less tech than I would have liked because the transfer window was there and it seemed exciting to try. I'm now getting concerned though because it will be on a long voyage and the static solar panel may move away from sunlight while I'm not watching and then I will lose the ability to control the probe. I have two batteries, and I just tested a theory I read online that said you can deactivate one so that if you come back and the rest is depleted you can simply activate the full battery. My experiment showed that this doesn't work, because once the probe is out of electric charge you can no longer activate that battery remotely, so you're really just losing more buffer. I have tried activating SAS while facing the sun (risky I know, since it uses even more charge, but if it guaranteed sun facing it would of course be worth it). Unfortunately some limited testing suggested that this doesn't necessarily work over long periods. This also wouldn't work with the round probe that doesn't have SAS. My best idea so far is to use the reaction wheel to set the probe into a slow diagonal spin and leave SAS off. This gives a big arc within which the the static panel will catch at least a few rays on occasion, thus making the only 'deadzones' for the panel when the probe is perfectly perpendicular to the sun, which is very unlikely to happen and unlikely to stay that way for long. Other ideas would be appreciated!

Oh apologies, I mentioned it in the first post but it was in passing - they are Kerbal Alarm Clock (3.7.1.0) and Kerbal Engineer (1.1.1.0) which to my knowledge are the newest versions of each. My KSP clilent is being auto-updated by Steam and is currently 1.1.3.1289.

Thank you so much for the response bewing! This was from flight mode map view with a ship, and yes I do have the tracking station upgraded to show conics. Here's an update and what I've done so far. First I tried restarting several times in both x64 and x86, as well as doing quick save and reload to refresh the scene (read about similar problems elsewhere and they said that it helped), but none of those things worked. I investigated it more closely and realized that the craft icon and honeycomb node icon would appear in the interplanetary region if I zoomed in a great deal, but would vanish as I zoomed out far enough to do anything useful like see how my maneuver node trajectories were changing. That seemed to be the underlying issue (icons vanishing when zoomed out) but I couldn't figure out what was causing it. Then I saw your reply and went with your idea to disable the mods (silly of me not to try this earlier, but thank you again for the recommendation). I pulled both mod folders out and started the game - BAM, things looked completely different. Suddenly I can see all the icons again even when zoomed out. The crafts, the ascending and descending nodes, the close approach, the maneuver node honeycombs, the planets, everything. I basically had no icons earlier but now it looks like before and feels right again. Here's the weird part though: I put both mods back one at a time, and tried both x64 and x86 launches and nothing has broken it. Now I have both mods running again like I did before and the problem hasn't come back. I was hoping to figure out what caused this glitch and how to fix it but unfortunately I have nothing to report beyond my experience here. Thought I would write it down anyway in case anyone else has a similar issue or it helps track down the bug. I will update this thread if I encounter it again and can try to isolate what happened.

So I played a decent amount of KSP around the end of 2015. Finally I'm back, updated the only mods I was running (Kerbal Alarm Clock and Kerbal Engineer), and reloaded my old save. There were a few minor issues but mostly things seem to work with my old save. The problem started when I tried to simulate an interplanetary transfer to Moho. I get up into a stable orbit and then I want to start planning the maneuvers to escape Kerbin's gravity, align with and intercept Moho, etc. Maneuver nodes within Kerbin's system seem to work as I remember them more or less, but when I zoom out to an interplanetary view it feels like there are UI elements missing. 1) I remember there being icons that showed where the planets were located. Now all I see is the colored orbit line itself which is brightly colored where the planet has most recently passed and fades to pale where it was a longer time ago. No icon to select or anything else. 2) When I make maneuver nodes in the interplanetary view, I can create them, manipulate them, see the resulting trajectories etc, but then when I click anywhere else to deselect it, the node icon (the little honeycomb) vanishes. The dotted trajectories are still there and if I very carefully hover in that general area I can sometimes select it again, but that icon that makes it easy to spot and select the node just disappears. This doesn't happen when I make maneuver nodes in Kerbin's SOI, only in the interplanetary region. 3) I feel like there used to be a lot more information when you set a planet as target and tried to plan a maneuver to intercept, such as closest approach/pass etc. I can't see this info any more, and have only been able to occasionally get up that relative planar angle figure (forgot the technical name) Do any of these things sound normal or like they are caused by my own errors, or perhaps caused by the mods, or perhaps caused by my old save? I feel like something's not quite right here. Thank you very much for reading!