TranquilTempest

Also, Is there a way to visualize gravitational field lines? I'm trying to set up a horseshoe orbit.

If I want to change the mass of the star, is there somewhere in addition to the kopernicus config file I need to change it? Or is there a cache file I need to delete so the initialization works properly? When I create a game after making the change, all the planets have extremely eccentric orbits, even if I set their eccentricity to zero in the config file. Edit: I found the principia config files. Do I need to manually re-generate the initial state cfg? Edit2: Editing the gravitational model, deleting the initial state cfg, and force stop then restarting principia worked.

I'm using the contracts that come with SCANSat with contract configurator. Is there a working way to increase the number of simultaneously offered contracts? I tried increasing the maxSimultaneous value in ContractPackScanSatOfficial.cfg, and it will constantly delete offered contracts to make room for new ones. It won't wait for the acceptance deadline before deleting the offered contract.

That's the front a shock diamond in that saturn V photo. There's a lot of awesome video of the falcon 9 plume expanding as atmospheric pressure drops:

The Kestrel and the Albatross: Both were designed for stock, but also work with NEAR.

I just saw an aerial survey waypoint inside a mountain, I was still able to complete it by flying next to the mountain, but it may be necessary to account for max terrain altitude when generating contracts, or possibly switch to terrain altitude at some point.

Custom: 10% rewards, 1000% penalties, 0 starting resources, Quickloading will be allowed for bugs only I'll also be installing DRE, FAR, TAC life support, Remotetech, etc.

Rendezvous without transfer windows: Step 1, set the thing you want to rendezvous with as a target. Step 2, get into an orbit that crosses your target's orbit going in roughly the same direction. This means your periapsis needs to be below your target's orbit, your apoapsis needs to be above your target's orbit. Step 3, your orbits cross in 2 dimensions, make them cross in 3 dimensions by matching planes, or by pushing the AN or DN to one of the two points where your orbit crosses your target's orbit. Step 4, your orbits cross in 3 dimensions at one point, wait until that point and burn prograde or retrograde until you get back around to this point of your orbit at the same time your target does. Burning prograde will mean the target has more time to catch up with you on the subsequent orbit. use a zero ∆v maneuver node to see further into the future, if necessary. For a FAST rendezvous without a transfer window, you plan step 4 into step 2. Sometimes this is expensive, as if you're going from Kerbin to Moho, it may require kicking your apoapsis way above Kerbin's orbit.

Problem: With the current contract payouts, expert players need to increase part costs more than 20x before they need to resort to multiple flag planting or science data contracts from the same place on the same mission, while beginners can still run into money trouble. This speaks to some necessity for rubber band difficulty, but also that just changing the amount of money isn't going to be accurate enough to make difficulty match skill level. While I don't think it's beneficial for that type of cheese to be possible, it does show what sort of difficulty range the game needs to cover. Payouts: First you need to estimate minimum cost to fly a mission. This can be done with a ∆v map/table (I'd suggest this one: http://i.imgur.com/NKZhU57.png) and the minimum payload required to complete the contract(the cheapest or lightest usable probecore or capsule, plus a part to be tested, if applicable). Start with 1k funds per ton of payload at 3km/s, and multiply by 1.7 every time you add another 1km/s. Exploration missions would have tight budgets. The advance would be equal to the minimum price estimate based on a one way probe, and the completion payout would be a lot of rep, and a little science(no funds). There should be an optional bonus for manned exploration missions, where planting any flag gets you the price estimate for a 1 way manned trip, instead of just a probe. Commercial missions would have much more forgiving budgets, the advance would be 3x the estimated cost, and the payout would be 10x the cost of the mission, plus reputation(no science reward). An example of a commercial mission would be to launch a communications satellite into a specific geostationary orbit, maybe use the asteroid system to generate a virtual target ship in the desired orbit, so you can see where you want the satellite to go via the map screen and navball. Government missions(like a "weather" satellite into a polar orbit) would have bigger advances than commercial missions, but give less reputation. Flag planting missions should require a specific mission flag to be carried from Kerbin. They'd be commercial missions in payout, and should probably have a bonus objective for returning the Kerbal home. Part testing missions would be commercial missions with science rewarded instead of reputation. Rescue missions would give a little money(cost of minimalist ship), no science, and a lot of reputation. (Crew hiring should be expensive enough to justify rescue missions.) Science data missions should require science from a biome/instrument combination that hasn't been exhausted yet. I also think additional biomes on the same planet or moon should give diminishing returns in general, so that the first surface biome you visit with an instrument gives 100%, the second gives 70%, etc. It shouldn't be possible to max out the tech tree with just the mun and minmus. Reputation: This is an obvious place to go for setting the rubber band difficulty, but it may need tweaking to make it useful for that purpose, such as a reputation penalty for being low on money, or a reputation boost for having over 2m saved up. How do you actually go about adjusting the difficulty? I think the best way would be to make the actual contracts harder to complete, like a flag planting mission requiring a specific biome, a science mission requiring a specific instrument in a specific biome, or a comsat mission requiring a precise 6 hour period at a specific longitude and zero inclination. This way a complete newbie can complete a contract asking for ANY orbit, while better players get tighter and tighter constraints until they start failing some missions. I think failure is a necessary place to dump excess funds, at ALL skill levels. Yes, you need to do some payout scaling as well. It should be tight enough that everybody runs into cost constraints, and needs to do some commercial missions to raise funds for their exploration missions. Contract availability: I think the availability of exploration missions needs to reflect reputation instead of just being offered X place next, and should expire like the procedural missions. They should have a minimum reputation threshold, and be offered periodically until they've been accepted or completed. This way you can skip places you don't want to go yet, without those exploration missions permanently blocking contracts for the places you do want to go. Commercial missions should require the exploration mission for that place be completed, but flag planting missions probably shouldn't require it.

I'm running 10x part cost 10x fuel, and I'm still accumulating money. I'm at 2.4m after mun minmus, Duna and Ike. I'm using FAR, DRE, and RT as well. I think flag missions(beyond the first one for each planet) need to require the mission flag be set to the company that gives you the mission. So you have to fly a new mission to complete multiple flag planting contracts on a single moon or planet. As right now it's possible to just farm infinite funds without flying new missions. That's a limitation I place on myself voluntarily. The part testing missions usually aren't worth it, unless you're already going to be in a position to test the part during an exploration mission.

How difficult would it be to sync to players in the past, in order to spectate someone that's behind you?

Career mode: First mostly stock(just information and visual mods), then with a bunch of difficulty enhancing mods(FAR, Deadly Reentry, RemoteTech, etc.) Sandbox mode: DMP. I won't be playing the science only mode.

There appears to be a craft exploding bug if you grab a planted flag with a claw equipped rover, then drive away. (excessive g-force) Probably not worth fixing, but definitely worth replicating. Is DRE able to tell the difference between a net force(acceleration) and a balanced force(parts in compression or tension)?

I think it could have a bit better thrust to make it more useful on Eve.

I do understand not wanting to put a lot of work into something that will be obsolete in the next patch. Maybe someone writing new missions will pay attention to this thread, maybe it's a moot point. I think it's better to figure out the problem and try to explain it than just hope it isn't repeated. I installed MCE because I thought it would be fun to deal with cost constraints, in addition to stuff like FAR, Deadly Reentry, Remotetech, etc. It was pretty challenging at the start, while I was figuring it out, but now I have enough cash that it isn't really a constraint. Obviously there needs to be some range of difficulty levels in the final game. Maybe dynamic difficulty, based on how much you spent on previous missions, maybe just make the payout for science heavy missions very small, near the limit of the minimum possible budget, while having some lucrative commercial missions to places/orbits that you've already obtained science from. This way the more skilled players don't have to do easy missions if they don't want to. I think it would take a lot of playtesting to figure out the best way to balance the wide range of player skill.

I was playing the missions in the stock set, and looked at most of the rest. The repeatable mission I was talking about was comsat V, which I think should require a new longitude or craft on completion, instead of just when you hit the randomize button(I didn't see a reason to do comsat I-IV, and haven't done Duna I or Vostock III yet). I probably would have broken that mission down into three missions, the first would be a geostationary satellite at any longitude, with bonus objectives for line of sight to KSC, and an extra bonus objective for putting it exactly at KSC's longitude. The second and third missions would require longitudes 120° in front of and in back of the first mission. Another 3 missions (or 1 mission with 3 payloads) would follow the same format, but require higher tech antennas on the ship, and more precise orbits. I would also have liked to see additional comsat missions in random molniya orbits. As for a suggestion on specific parts requirements, I would try and put missions with tech tree prerequisites into mission categories that depend on that tech. For example, the first mission with docking would kick off the set of missions that construct a space station. Docking outside of the space station missions would just be an optional objective on missions where it's expected to reduce the overall cost of the mission. I might try random missions and contracts, but I didn't have the tech prerequisites for any of the interesting ones when I first looked them.

I thought I'd check out mission controller before .24 gets released, but after playing with it a bit, the progression seems ill suited for career mode, or ambitious missions in general. For example, I really don't like being forced to crash into a planet, just to unlock the mission where I successfully land on it. Another problem is that a lot of entry level missions require specific parts that come later in the tech tree(like docking ports, cupola) I also think the money is a lot easier to accumulate than it should be, budget for non-repeating missions should be per mission instead of global, with an under-budget bonus coming in the form of science points. Oh, and a bug: repeatable missions should be re-rolled with new parameters whenever you successfully complete them, so you can't accept and complete the same repeating mission with the same craft in the same orbit.

Either 1m lander can, or probecore+seat.

The KSC decided they needed a low latency connection to the other side of Kerbin, which may or may not have something to do with video games and unmanned aircraft. Anyway, they came up with the Jormungand relay network: Launched with kOS, tuned to within engineer's SMA and orbital period precision manually, then locked them all to the same semimajor axis with a bit of savefile editing.

In case anyone's curious about the ascent autopilot I'm working on: http://pastebin.com/439Bm7yi I wouldn't call it done, but I've wasted enough time on it tonight, and I think it's good enough to share. Intended use: remotetech probes/relays in .24. I need to work on reducing the size of the script and the amount of time it takes to circularize. I'll probably end up consolidating the three sections into one loop, so I can get rid of the duplicated staging code and steering error/SAS code I considered starting a competition to develop the most reliable and efficient ascent script, but decided the fun way to do that would be too much work to organize and score. The idea was to have each competitor submit an autopilot script and a .craft. Each submitted script would be run on each submitted craft, and ranked by average altitude, remaining fuel, and eccentricity. So you design a ship as difficult to pilot as possible, playing to the strengths of your particular autopilot script, and exploiting weaknesses you think everyone else's autopilot scripts would have.

Try locking throttle to a variable instead of 0, then setting that variable to whatever. In other news, I've spent waaaaay too much time refining my ascent autopilot script. You know you're off the deep end when you consider correcting for how fast the ship rotates.

Speaking of steering, is there a way to ignore roll when locking steering? I've tried to read facing:roll so I can subtract it out, but it's always within FP jitter of 0.

I'm well aware of the difficulties in a versatile circularization algorithm , but it's pretty easy and safe to save the apoapsis in a variable when you start the burn, and stop burning when your periapsis > saved apoapsis -500. No, it won't be exactly circular, but if all you want to do is get your periapsis out of the atmosphere, it's great. If you want a very circular orbit, you control thrust and pitch to keep your apoapsis just in front of you, and complete the burn at very low thrust with apoapsis about 10 seconds in front of you. This method can easily get you within 100m of circular, so long as your code is aware of your ship's maximum acceleration and the amount of ∆v required to finish the burn. It's essentially equivalent to making a circularization burn, then waiting until apoapsis and making another one to get a bit closer to circular.

Once you get close to the node, it's generally better to check the thing you were trying to accomplish in the first place, for example, if you create a node to circularize at apoapsis, cut the engines when your periapsis gets within X of your starting apoapsis.

Jeb just got back from Tylo. He had to wait years in a highly eccentric high Jool orbit for a transfer window.