vossiewulf

-+-+ Another way to do it would be just to use rectangles as the petals, which would stow without overlapping. After they extend down, you expand the outer edge circumferentially to fill the gaps between the rectangles. That could probably be done in a way that looks like a cool interlocking mechanism designed to prevent hot gases from penetrating. This need also applies to pods in many cases for me also, on Mun/Minmus reentries (5500m/s+) I've been losing stowed solar panels, and anything surface attached anywhere near the heat shield, even with a somewhat oversized shield. In short if I had an expanding heat shield part, it would be my default heat shield particularly if it came with all of SSTU's other useful configuration options I have, short of having enough Dv to massively reduce reentry speed, they still blow up. I used to do that for bigger stages at KSP default scale, but the reentry speed of 2.5x is defeating me in all cases except where I have a significantly oversized heat shield to keep the fuel tanks' skins from overheating.

I'll check, but a number of people are playing JNSQ (I really like the additional challenge of 2.5x, going to try the newly-released RSS 2.5x next) and I don't think anything is wrong. I'm not talking SRBs or first stage rockets that you drop off below 40k or so, those all recover fine with Stage Recovery, as long as I put enough parachutes on. I'm talking about the stages that have an apoapsis near or in space, those will simply not survive a 2.5x reentry, it's the fuel tanks that blow. This is a typical case for me, my launchers are at least 3.5m and now usually 5 or 7.5m, and I typically have beastly large SRBs to get me to 20-30k or so, and a big LFO/Hydrolox stage that gets my apoapsis in space somewhere around 100-150k with a third rocket stage to set the final orbit alt and to circularize, or carry on to Mun/Minmus. Those second stages are big and have lots of expensive SSTU engines on them, they're reentering at around 3500-4km/s, 4900m/s is required on 2.5x Kerbin for LKO.

I'm playing the JNSQ version, a modified Kerbol system at 2.5x, reentry speeds are considerably higher. I've yet to have any booster survive reentry long enough to let Stage Recovery take over with the parachutes. Even using stack-sized heat shields, so far they blow up. Only way I've gotten them down is with oversized shields that reduce the heat going to the tanks. I am playing with heat and pressure limits on.

Yeah problem is there aren't any real expanding circular mechanisms I'm aware of besides an iris. Only other option I've been thinking of is petals of a sort that fold against the rocket body, but they would have to overlap each other in some way in the stowed position, and would be visually much more obvious than something that could be stowed within the stack diameter. The problem with inflatable is that I have a hard time believing I am reentering an atmosphere at mach 15 when my heat shield looks like a raft I rented at Myrtle Beach. And at the same time I'm frustrated from the lack of options, just had to watch another 7.5m booster section with 7 RD-171s burn up as I have no way to recover them other by launching with oversized heat shields so the rocket looks like stacked mushrooms.

As I recall, yes, sounds like the ones. Maybe we should have a thread on parts we still wish we had; apparently, most modders left to their own devices will produce an infinite number of magnetometer booms.

I've seen one set of parts that were expanding heat shields, but I don't remember where and I don't have them anymore. Although they did the job, I didn't like them much as they were very bulky and looked like they were made of of repurposed canvas sails. I'm hoping someone would make something more sophisticated, like the iris idea above, or maybe at least ablative petals that fold flush for launch and fold down for reentry.

Thanks again for the detailed explanation. I will probably just nuke the terrain section in the file, and will reply if I'm still having problems.

Thanks. So I assume I have to edit my settings.config file, or do I delete it to access those settings?.

I forgot to get back to this, sorry, and thanks for the suggestion. However, where are these detail settings? I've looked in both the Settings menu in the main UI as well as the difficulty menu,and I see no JNSQ_Anything.

Nertea, any idea why the Harbour station core at the bottom and the presurized crew tubes aren't considered connected living spaces? I launched this and docked it and then found I couldn't EVA my crew as they couldn't reach the airlock.

Sigh Thanks for checking.

Ah, great, thanks. If that's the case, it's worth asking the next question, will it work with JNSQ at 2.5x?

In my case it's looking for something called KSPUtil, not finding it, and completely crashing. I had to remove it, have been waiting hopefully for some feedback. It's posted there in the thread.

There was no judgment present or implied, I'm aware of that. If it is being actively supported, great.

KK doesn't work at all for me in 1.71, and doesn't seem to be receiving active support, no replies in weeks. I suggest you make those features an optional, separate download.

I always figured that when you see a nice new mod, you're all like

You probably aren't, but if you're looking for part ideas, one I haven't found and think would be nice is deployable heat shields that expand from a stowed state, that aren't those inflatable ones. What I was thinking was a heat shield in iris form, and it can expand and a circular surface drops in from above to close the center hole once deployed. I would like to recover some of these very expensive large vehicles I am building at 2.5x, and the only way I've found that works is to have a heat shield that is bigger than the diameter of the tank, tanks seem to blow if any significant heat reaches them. Also decided to mention it since it would at least be an interesting part to model and animate.

I get this oscillation on burns with this Dragon's internal engines. I assume this means the internal engines are imbalanced? Or is it a MJ thing?

Guys, what is the difference between Reconfig and just OPT? I have Legacy and Reconfig, but I don't seem to have the engines and some other things.

So if the pod you're using doesn't have the Start Life Support button on the context menu, I assume that means it's not supporting USI LS at all and simply can't be used for anything but LKO? Luckily I put a probe core on it first, they're scheduled to go touristy before the capture burn at the Mun (2.5x).

I've never seen that, and I use PP with lots of mods, like 200. That sounds more like something is conflicting with PP, you should look in the ksp.log to see what is happening.

So you've implemented ravenous Kerbal-eating space clams then. I was wondering when that would happen.

Thanks for the clarification, now I understand. Yes there are certainly scenarios where you'd want to disable the EC flow, and I guess it makes sense to have it default off during launch before any solar is deployed.

Not in flight, in the VAB, wouldn't help much to find out you don't have enough parachutes only after you take off. In the VAB, click on the SR button and click on Highlight if it isn't clicked already. Each stage of your vehicle will be highlighted in red/yellow/green, and I don't think I need to explain what that indicates about landing speed/recovery value.

Ah, thanks Brigadier. I thought I'd read all the docs but I missed that. Um, why does it work that way? Is there some reason one wants to be able to turn hab on and off?