Magzimum

Good idea. I'd like to play for 32 hours every day as well.

I'd support it if they are changed so that the final destination is either Kerbin (for R&D) or an existing station. Delivery to stations in orbit (preferably from the planet/moon below) would make a lot of sense. We do this right now for refueling purposes. Delivery to stations on a surface of a planet/moon could make sense of those stations have a need for the ore, i.e. they either have a R&D lab or they have an ISRU unit, but no drills. Obviously, the ore must be docked to such station for the contract to be completed. I realize that the game may not be able to tell whether such a station happens to have its own ISRU and sits right on top of a rich ore deposit, but at least missions would make a little more sense, with limited changes needed for the game. Delivery to Kerbin is still useful too, also if you do some role-playing. R&D is the only real reason you would haul ore to Kerbin. Materials should be available cheaper on the surface, so you don't haul it for industrial reasons. Still, a mission with a research incentive could still ask for a few tons of ore. NASA can do some good R&D on a few grams of Moon dust, but they'd be delighted to have a lot more of it, so it could be distributed to more researchers, and for larger scale experiments (i.e. growing potatoes on real Martian soil would require a few tons).

Today, I answered my own question on the forum! tl;dr : I realized the answer while I was writing the post. Longer version : I built a large rover that can move fuel from my mining station to a tanker ship (*). So, drove the rover from the mine to the tanker, and docked with it. No problem (**). I docked with the Klaw (Advanced Grabbing Unit) and summoned the Kraken. Upon disconnecting, the rover started to jiggle and bounce. First a little, but soon it bounced visibly, as in the picture below, and eventually so high that 8 wheels (the tires) broke on landing, and it nearly flipped itself. So, I was gonna post a question on the forum, to ask if that problem is location-dependent, or rover-dependent... and as I pasted the picture, I noticed the physics-warp-3x in the top-left corner of my own picture... and I went "Aaahha!", and just reloaded, repeated and disconnected at 1x warp. No problems. So, in a way I answered my own question on this forum - I would maybe not have found it if I had not started to write here. (*) Sure, this could perhaps be made simpler if the mine itself could move - that's not the topic of this post, and a lesson I may learn somewhere in 2017. (**) No problem other than the regular wheels that all turn in different directions, which is solved by moving my Kerbal from the seat to the lander can, and back to the seat, and playing around with the "control from here" until the wheels cooperate again.

When I read your suggestion, I misread gilliteroids (asteroids like Gilly) for "glitteroids", and thought of these: And I was immediately enthusiastic because what Dres really needs is more action and more attention. Maybe add some party lights too?

I'd like to offer a simpler solution to get us to design large space planes and SSTOs: We just need a new type of mission, in which we get a much larger group of tourists that all want to go to a single destination. The idea behind it is that one of the agencies now acts like a tourist agency, and did all the work to get that group of tourists for us. My version lacks certain economic strategic features that your idea did have (i.e. setting the price to get a certain amount of tourists), but it is far more likely to be implemented because it's much less coding for the developers. I probably share your frustration with tourist missions in which 5 tourists all want to fly to completely different destinations. As soon as the number of possible destinations has grown beyond Duna, I stop taking on tourists altogether because I just cannot be bothered with the complex logistics of having all these tourists on multiple missions across the system until I have finally fulfilled their complex wish-list.

Obviously, SpaceX have one specific route between factory and launch site, and therefore a set list of bottlenecks that their rockets need to fit through... but in a more general picture, the only real bottleneck is often the height of a cargo because it needs to fit under a bridge. This goes for rail or road, and is also true for a lot of other process equipment in chemical industry and other heavy industry. And I totally agree with everyone here that the tube is so much cheaper than a cone. It pays off to use a little more fuel, and have a slightly less efficient rocket if you can make it much cheaper.

I am on Linux as well, and I agree with @Martian Emigrant. I recommend RecordMyDesktop if you want to make some simple videos to share on the forum. It really just does what it says on the box, and you can "learn" it in 1 minute. For video editing, I use Kdenlive. It is a relatively simple program, which I thought had a reasonable learning curve before you can produce your first edited video (putting fragments together, adding some text, and adding some music).

Built a new tanker-rover for my Minmus base. My existing rovers did not have enough liquid-fuel capacity. Launching, as always with these aerodynamic wonders, was straight up until 25-30 km after which I went towards the horizon. Macpond Kerman was terribly excited. Here it's docked to the mining base. I may have to expand that too, at some point. This has only 6 drills.

Aha, that's the lesson I was hoping to learn. So to avoid this you have to connect to the node, rather than anywhere to the part. Sorry that I was a little thick - because you already gave the answer in your first post. Thanks for being patient and explaining a little more!

Excellent job! Surprising that the stupid heat shield still survived, even after a tumble. Good that you caught it on camera, littering Eve in the distance.

I just flew a SSTO to get some crew back from a Jool mothership. I think that the trip may qualify for the K-prize... so I thought I'd post it here. It's my 3rd spaceplane, based on the Mk2 fuselages (I made a bunch more on 1.25m, and exactly zero successful ones on Mk3 stuff). Made an imgur album out of it (here: http://imgur.com/a/SBqmq). I think that it is just another Mk2 SSTO (they all look the same, no?), so I will post only 1 pic here. This pic is taken as I am about to circularize. Had to use the RAPIERs for another short burst as the NERVs alone were not enough to circularize. Note: I read that docking with some other ship qualifies for some extra kudos, but I have to be honest that I controlled the other mothership (which had more RCS) to do the actual docking procedure, with this SSTO just hanging in space, waiting. Mothership can be seen in the album. The final pic in the album is my favorite: 5 crew members that all got 33 XP extra, as they got back from Jool/Pol/Bop, and this was just the taxi to get them home.

@Tex_NL, I know that the wheel itself is not attached to the docking port. The metal beam or whatever it is called is attached to the docking port. Nonetheless, there is a part connected to the docking port, and when I right-click on the docking port, it does not give the option to undock. Will attempt to edit that save-game as @Van Disaster suggested... As for the option to just destroy it - yeah, that's the Kerbal way. But I have 4 such stupid wheels... and I already attached sepatrons to my wheels, which in my opinion was already quite violent. Oh well...

tl;dr Is there any way to detach this wheel (and the part, preferably without diving into the code of the craft? Longer story I built some extension for my Minmus station. I want my stations to be stationary. Because... well, it's in the word, no? It's stationary. So it needs to stand on legs, not on wheels, so the wheels gotta be temporary and detach. A station on wheels is called a "rover" in my opinion, no matter how large it is. So, since the section I was gonna fly out has many docking ports, I figured that I would just attach the wheels to that. Then I would just decouple them when I arrive. I do this all the time with aerodynamic nosecones on top of upwards facing docking ports on my ships. I just detach the nosecone as soon as I am out of the atmosphere. So why not with the sideways docking ports? Well, I will tell you why not: as I get to Minmus, and I approach the station, it does not show the option of undock or detach or whatever. Why not, and how can I get them off? (Reloading did not change anything, and docking it with the station, and/or undocking it from other parts also did not change the lack of options I get on right-clicking the docking port.

Woohoo! *applauds* Make sure to take some screenshots and post it in the mission reports!

I would just try a 2nd time, with the same craft. Perhaps wiggly your ship a little with the WASD keys while hanging on the parachutes, so that the ship (and the heat shield) is not 100% horizontal when detaching, but a few degrees off the horizontal. I noticed that sometimes it will then flip itself, and accelerate quite a bit while it does that. You only need to get it to go faster than 9 m/s after all, and it should blow itself up. In fact, it may already reach speeds of over 9 m/s, so if the heat shield touches the ground first, it should blow up normally. The fact that it didn't may have been a fluke. Frankly, I think you nailed it, but you may have cursed the Kraken a few times too many. Just try again. Hopefully you have a quicksave when you've got your parachutes deployed, so you can just try that part of the flight a few times, without all the tedious steps before it.

I designed a Laythe lander (planning my first landing there soon). Got a nice crew compartment, science module, some RSC, enough dV to get back, parachutes, solar, the lot... It was a nice wide lander, which would not tip over if it lands on a hill. I did some test-flights on Kerbin, since the conditions are hopefully comparable. Even deliberately put some empty tanks under the legs before take-off, to simulate take-off at an angle... And then I realized that the damn thing needs heat shields because Laythe has an atmosphere, and I was totally planning to use the atmosphere to slow down! Oops. The design was totally unsuitable to mount some heat shields below it. It was pretty much guaranteed to flip upon re-entry, and it was far too wide... so... back to square one and back to the drawing board. But hey, at least I had fun trying to fly that lander off the launchpad. Decouple from mothership Lowering orbit to LLO (Low Laythe Orbit) Put orbit within atmosphere Heat shields!! Parachute descent Land on Laythe EVA Jeb and his friends (ladders) Launch from Laythe Reaching orbit Circularization Docking with mothership Start designing at step 11, and design every step up from there separate, while keeping the other steps in mind. And don't skip step 4 this time.

From your description, I sense that the problem is not in the drag of the heat shields, but the explosives that are used to separate it. Try setting the ejection force to zero, so that they just decouple and are allowed to fall down. Then when your velocity is reduced to 7.2 m/s, they should separate without blowing anything up. The fact that stuff blows up at the moment you detach the heat shields suggests to me that we're not dealing with an impact of debris (at hasn't had the time to build up any velocity relative to your lander after all) but with something more buggy altogether. As I said, my lander slowed down to only 8-9 m/s and I got rid of that heat shield. But I have had plenty of landers blow up when I separated that 10m heat shield, and they all blew up at the instant that I separated the heat shield. Those explosives that are used in the decoupler are a little suicidal, in my opinion. It should be hard. We need a couple of good challenges in this game! [edit] Ah, I read in your last post that you're identified the Kraken. Hopefully that solves the problem. Overlapping heat shields start acting like 2 separate parts of debris the moment you separate them. And since they overlap, all that teflon or ceramic material will obviously explode. Good luck!

It would probably drastically increase the life expectancy on Kerbin to do a lot of tests in a wind tunnel rather than on a launchpad and in the skies directly above the KSC. At the same time, you have to wonder how the information gathered in such a wind tunnel is presented to the players? Most of the players including myself are of the trial-and-error type, who may not exactly appreciate a large chunk of data to dig through, while we cackle gleefully at another floppy rocket that blows up. Also, wind tunnels aren't cheap. I would suggest that the "smal cost" is at least in the order of magnitude as the corresponding VAB and CPH, with the same limitations, so the base wind tunnel for only a few tons, and 30 parts, at atmospheric flight below mach 1. The 1st upgrade several hundred thousand, and the wind tunnel for the largest ships in the order of a million. Whether this is done by reducing the costs of the R&D upgrades, or by adding an additional cost, I don't know. It seems to me that such a wind tunnel is an optional extra that players can unlock if they have some money to spend... so I'd add the costs on top of the current costs of the upgrades. If a single test in that wind tunnel will cost me money, they I won't use it. I'd rather launch and revert back to the VAB/SPH then.

I recently posted my Eve adventure on the Mission reports. I experienced the exact same problem, and went through 5 designs before finally getting it. I went with the inflatable heat shield below the engines. That still flipped because I had a few stabilizer fins that were sticking out... so I put some large fins all the way at the top of the rocket, with airbrakes (pitch and yaw enabled!). The heat shield also would not let go of my rocket, even with parachutes semi-deployed. But once the parachutes were fully deployed and I slowed down to 8-9 m/s, it finally separated. But I used only parachutes to slow me down (no engines)... I guess you're going with an engine-assisted landing, since I see only 6 parachutes? I don't know if those parachutes will slow you down enough to get rid of that heatshield. My advice would be to increase the number of parachutes, and to put them on radial decouplers (e.g. TT-38K), so you can ditch them before launching off Eve's surface. (Also makes for good fireworks, since obvioulsly used parachutes will detonate when they hit Eve's surface at anything over 12 m/s).

This still exists on 1.1. I only had the contract once, and it finally sent me to 5 spots. I think mine was on the Mun, and I was very close to running out of fuel. I don't mind it if the game throws me a curveball every now and then. Keeps things interesting. The next time such a contract comes along, I will bring more fuel, and less worries.

Thanks for the really clear answer (and thanks for those who voted it up, supporting it). The need to ask came from sheer lack of understanding of what's going on, so such an answer probably is just what I needed. But your answer was clear and useful. I decided to (at least for now) postpone the upgrade. For anyone who cares, a little background: I am finally in the situation to explore the last planets in my career (Dres, I am coming for you!) and moons (Jool-5 mission in planning)... so I am more interested in these new worlds and missions because I have never visited these planets/moons yet. New gear and interface can wait a little. Frankly, my main concern right now is rather personal: I am planning a Jool-5 mission, and possibly later a Dres-Awareness, and I am afraid that I complete these after everybody moves to 1.2 and the challenge is moved on as well, so that my post won't count... so I mainly just wanna check that my progress is not being endangered by this upgrade. I'd like to entertain you with a cool post in the threads of these challenges, and get a badge!

So, 1.2 seems out for trials, and we can get it from Steam or from the KSP site. I am in the middle of a very successful stock career. A few newbie questions: Will my current career just load the same, so that I can continue? Will my ships all exist, assuming I use no mods? Will my designs load in the VAB / SPH? And yes, I am aware that 1.2 is in some finalization process, and may still contain some bugs. If the side-effects of upgrading are manageable, I am willing to suffer from a few bugs so that I can jump on the bandwagon. I am aware that I may need to manually move the saves and designs to the correct folders or something. Let's assume that I manage to follow instructions on this too. This thread is not about how to upgrade (I think). I hope I put this in the right thread.

Make sure to install the KER mod, which will give you the amount of dV you can get from a ship. Then add engines and fuel until you have enough. A ship to go interplanetary is essentially a giant fuel tank with engines, and "oh yes, there at the top I spot a lander too if I look carefully". What you have there is a station, and I wouldn't use it to visit any other planets or moons (... anymore - I tried similar things only a few months ago). To go travel the planets and moons, I recommend to change 3 things: Make the joints more rigid. Minimize the sideways mounted structures. If you must, make those lightweight, close to the center, and connect them with the senior docking port. In your current design, these will flop around and make acceleration awkward and inefficient. Put a LOT more fuel on the ship. Like at least 5 more orange tanks just to get to Duna... probably even more. I would recommend to use NERVs and only liquid fuel, although you do need more patience with those. Make sure that all sideways attached compartments have the same mass. That hitchhiker compartment does not seem to have the same mass as the pod (Mk1-2 with poodle engine). If you turn on an engine on this vessel, it will not go straight... and that is generally considered to be a bad thing.

Thanks for all the feedback! @Wcmille, I like your suggestion to use a dummy drone (or in your case a space station) to find the ejection orbit out of Kerbin's SoI. I would imagine that this is useful for almost everybody, since everybody has a station or some satellite in LKO. Thanks for the tip. It makes my "option 2" a little easier. From Bop back to a Kerbin intercept took me 1150 m/s last night, so that is a bit curious. I did notice that it mattered enormously if you intercept Kerbin at your solar Pe, or somewhere else (meaning you need to use more fuel at Jool, and a lot more to stay in Kerbin's SoI once you get there). Did you 'rendezvous' with Kerbin at your solar Pe? How low to Jool did you go? Close to its atmosphere (well below Laythe)? Just asking because I struggled with the Jool return last night, and because I intend to do a few more Jool visits in the near future.

This is so Kerbal that it makes me giggle and want to try it myself.