djr5899

I don't have any fancy stats on drag, heating, dynamics, etc.....but.... I started a new career after the MOAR Boosters upgrade, and, in a simple craft, first run of getting to orbit of Kerbin and de-orbitting, the following occurred at a normal re-rentry angle at around 2400m/s and decellerating: Re-entry consisted of a heat shield, science junior, two chutes on either side of the science junior, a MK1 command pod, 8 goo containers, 6 pressure sensors, 6 thermometers, and a MK16 chute. Re-entry heating exploded all objects except for the MK16 chute and the MK1 command pod. The heat shield didn't actually explode. It was attached to the science junior, yet, the science junior still exploded, and the heat shield was aerodynamically stuck to the MK1 chute. Without that, I believe the MK1 would have likely exploded. In previous versions, that entire craft should have survived with easy, with nothing being destroyed by heating factors. I'd say there is a definite problem with heating after the update.

Even though I've had the game for several years, both PC and Xbox/Xbox One versions, I still consider myself a relative newbie. Out of 16 planets/moons in the default Kerbal Solar System, I've never been to half of them still. A few of them I've done a unmanned flyby, and even less have I ever landed a Kerbal on. For the longest time, Kerbin, Mun, and Minmus were the only places I would visit. I stayed away from mods for as long as I could, and tend to use as little mods as I really need. The main ones I use: KER - even though newer KSP updates have added the dV values, I still like the information and layout of KER. [x] Science - If you are playing Career or Science modes, this one helps gather science without having to click on all the science experiments indvidually. RCS Build Aid - When you start doing bases, labs, etc where you need to dock and use RCS, this is handy to make sure your RCS thrusters are moving your vessel appropriately and not making it drift/push to a specific Docking Port Alignment - I had a lot of issues docking, and found this tool valuable. I no longer use, as many experienced players have said, learning how to use the NavBall is the best thing you can do to get docking down pat. Alarm Clock - I don't have it loaded right now. If you are going to do a lot of missions to other planets, it can come in handy. I've never tried Mechjeb. I've tried to avoid it since it seems to do a lot of the "challenging aspects" for you.

Playing one of my Science mode games, I had sent Jeb, Bob, and Bill to Duna. Down to the surface with a small lander, pickup some more science, back up to redock with main ship, transfer science, jettison lander, and outta Duna SOI......and, outta fuel. Modified a craft for Val, ditching the lander and adding more fuel tanks to hopefully transfer fuel to Jeb and crew, and get both ships back to Kerbin. WRONG. Val got a little impatient, didn't wait for a proper transfer/intercept, and burned way more fuel than she should have. She had enough fuel to improve the orbit to be closer to Kerbin, but still no rendevous. Meclan Kerman to the rescue. Meclan has patience in spades, in didn't mind waiting some 200 days in orbit for the most fuel efficient transfer/intercept to come along. Got Meclan within 10m of Jeb/Val linked ship, sent Val on a spacewalk to Meclan's vessel, undocked and ditched Val's vessel, and Meclan cleanly docked with Jeb ship. Again, the ever patient Meclan waited for the ideal transfer window to intercept Kebin at about 80km periapsis. Set my orbit to below 70km, and had 33m/s delta-V left to spare. Separated the vessels down to two MK 1-3 pods connected by Clam-O-Tron Docking Ports, and a bunch of chutes for landing. Mission accomplished.

You Sir @XLjedi are my hero. I briefly skimmed through the document and can tell that this is the EXACT type of information I need......KSP Propellors and Rotors for Dummies. Can't wait to get home and give this a more thorough read through and build some prop stuff. Thank you very much for your time and effort on this document!

Glad to hear it. Unfortunately, that doesn't help me get any further in the game. A training mission, a guide on the relationship between tourque, rpm, authority limit, deploy/undeploy, mapping yaw/roll/pitch, etc, etc isn't really too much to ask for though. Spent another 2 hours playing with it after my post. 3t craft with single propeller....fastest I could get it to go was 11 m/s, with a lot of unwanted side movement.

I spent 2-3 hours today trying to build a simple prop plane.....it didn't work. I spent 2-3 hours yesterday trying to build a simple helicopter....it didn't work. Last month, I spent 3-4 hours trying to make use of hinges and rotors for a "simple" X-Wing....it didn't work. I believe Breaking Ground will likely be my last KSP purchase for some time. I was very excited by both the hinges/rotors update, as well as the props update, however, as a non-expert KSP player, I have found the documentation on how to use these new features extremely poor and lacking. I've watched one or two videos on both props and hinges, and just find the whole control of them ugly and non-intuitive. It would be nice to have a central system, a better KAL-1000, to control hinges/rotors, and something similar for rotor/prop flying. Instead, I seem to be left with pinning several part windows, mapping a ton of controls to action groups, and just left totally clueless. Disappointed that there isn't a single piece of documentation for KSPedia for rotors/props, and very little on using KAL-1000 for hinges/motors/etc. Tutorials on the forums, YouTube videos, in-game Training missions, showing you how to build the simplest craft with these features doesn't seem like too much to ask for. Squad/TakeTwo are dropping the ball big time in this area. Not every player has been to every planet, uses mods, builds 1000 part craft, etc.

Just to wrap up, built a bigger landing craft, took an engineer with me along with scientist, a pilot, and had room for a dog in the 4th seat. Everything worked fine this time when I had the Engineer place the power and the Control station. Thanks for the help!

That kind of stinks and severely limits the ease of use of these devices. To most efficiently use these parts, I need 3 kerbalnauts: I need a pilot to land on the surface with the most ease, the ability to use SAS controls. I need an Engineer to setup the Control Station, Power, and Communications I need a Scientist to setup the Experiments. Takes just the MK2 Lander Can, my standard setup, out of the picture. I either need to put to MK2s, add an MK1 Lander Can, or use an MK1-3 Command Pod.

I think the key word in your response is Engineer. I did not see anything in KSPedia that told me I needed to use an Engineer. To me, I'm placing Science....I would want to use Scientist. So I believe the fact that I am using a Level 2 Scientist is likely the cause of the problem. Again, it's on me if I missed it in KSPedia, but in game tutorials on using deploying the science and using the new robotics parts would have been nice. As someone that visits the forums, I would have settled for a good Tutorial on here.

I started off with just the Experiment Control Station. In the YouTube video I was watching, the player places just the control station, looks at the details, and sees his Comm signal as 0.99. Mine always shows as zero. I am on the Mun (video is on Minmus, and starts the deploying science part around the 22 minute mark) I tried putting down a photovoltaic panel, a ground commuotron station, and the mystery good experiment. All of them say connected. All of them say they have no power. My Experiment Control Station says something like Low Voltage. All parts were placed by my Level 2 Scientist. Below is the video I was using, as well as a screenshot of my deployment with nothing working. (re-arranged items, and the Commuontron in the background is purposely set to disabled for the moment).

I feel like a real dummy here, although, I must admit the documentation of new features for Breaking Ground is severely lacking. Anywho.....how in the world does deployable science work? I've finally got to a spot in my career where I could try out these new features, I can't get them to work, and KSPedia isn't even useful to keep my control station from wobbling. Put a control station on the ground, and nothing is happening. I am not getting any type of COMMs connection to it. I've tried further away and/or damn near touching my landed craft. I looked at a youtube video where a guy places the Control Station, and gets 0.99 Comms connection. Mine is zero. I have laid down other pieces (photo panel array, goo station experiment, communications) that all say connected but seem to be lacking power. Totally confused on how to make this work, and the lack of documentation for it is frustrating. There are no Tutorials here in the forum that I see, and I haven't found anything really good on YouTube from the user community. Help?

I don't have a ton of time put into the game (about 1000 hours, which is nothing compared to a lot of the folks here). I've still never visited much of the stock solar system (Mun, Minmus, Ike, Duna, and some flybys in the Jool system is all I have done). There are several things though that I would love to see added: I would agree a stock life support system would be a huge addition. Even if you can toggle it on or off would be great. Would be nice to have to do planning for longer trips, or have a forced reason to do a supply mission or crew rotation to orbital bases and labs. An expanded repair system, including the ability to assemble craft in space. I've tried a few times to build larger craft in space by launching piece by piece, and connecting them together via multiple docking ports. Not very stable. And, I don't know how many times I've launched a satellite or an unmanned craft, and forgot batteries, solar panels, or simply to raise the antenna to keep contact with the vessel. It would be great if I could send an engineer to add a part, assemble larger pieces of craft using couplers and not just docking ports, or even recover a dead satellite/base by raising antenna or charging batteries. Additional space ports. Either add some ports that only become available after you "find them" in a current save, or add the ability to build your own space port on a planet as part of base building. I have both PC and Xbox One versions of the game. Adding a space port on the Mun was a game changer for me in terms of visiting more distant planets. You expend far less fuel leaving Mun than Kerbin, which means you open up Additional stock lighting. Would love to see a light-house type rotating light (which, I guess with the new parts coming in DLC that may be possible), but, in general, lighting options are very lacking. I use Surface Lights mod to handle this today, but this seems like a really simple thing to add some lights of different sizes for plane based craft, labs, ships, and bases.

Hello, I have run into an issue where I am seeing ships disappear from my Sandbox mode save. And what I mean by disappear is, I have a number of craft that are in orbit and landed on planets. Now, I've never been very ambitious about having a bunch of craft out in space at the same time, and yet, I've seen dozens of screenshots from players with lots and lots of ships. In 1.7, I seem to be running into an issue going above 10 ships. In my current Sandbox game, I have the following ships out in space 3 satellites in geosync orbit around Kerbin 1 resource satellite around Minmus 1 relay satellite around Minmus, to help prevent signal outage zones 2 ore drilling rigs on the surface of Minmus (first two craft put on Minmus) 1 rover mainly for transporting ore from drillers to ore processor (3rd craft on Minmus) 1 ore processing craft (4th craft added to Minmus) 1 additional rover, just for moving fuel from ore processor to fuel storage rig (5th craft added to Minmus) The 5 ships on Minmus are all in the same location, with 500m of each other. All of those ships were working just fine, no issues. Yesterday, I went to launch a another ship to the surface of Minmus, a fuel storage vessel. When I got there and started my decent to land, I noticed that there were only 3 craft showing on the ground (1 ore rig, 1 rover, 1 ore processor), instead of the 5 that should have been there. 1 rover (3rd craft on Minmus surface) and 1 ore rig (1st or 2nd craft placed on Minmus) were gone. No sign of them, no pieces of them, no listing of them in the tracking station. I attempted to launch a new rover to the Minmus, and when I got there, my other rover (5th craft added to Minmus) and my other ore rig (1st or 2nd craft on the planet) were now gone. Unfortunately, because these were missions to Minmus and relatively close, I didn't keep a lot of saves like I would for longer missions. I have no saves available with no craft missing. I do have a save of me landing Mods in place: KER, ScanSAT, Surface Lights, RCS Build Aid, [X] Science Anyone else comes across something similar? Very frustrating as I get limited time to play KSP anymore, and, getting all my satellites in place, and my different craft refined through several versions of each took me about a month to complete.

Soooo....I've been working on Minmus operations for about a month. Building a few drilling rigs, adding a few rovers, an ore processor, and finally a larger fuel storage craft. Currently I have the following 3 satellites in geosync orbit around Kerbin 1 resource satellite around Minmus 1 relay satellite around Minmus, to help prevent signal outage zones 2 ore drilling rigs on the surface of Minmus (first two craft put on Minmus) 1 rover mainly for transporting ore from drillers to ore processor (3rd craft on Minmus) 1 ore processing craft 1 additional rover, just for moving fuel from ore processor to fuel storage rig Today, I finished building my fuel storage vessel, tested out the alignment of the docking port for transferring fuel to/from rovers, and launched the craft to Minmus. Landed great, BUUUUUUUT......big problem.....2 of my craft are no longer on the surface of Minmus. They are nowhere. They are gone. Not on the surface, not in the tracking station. No little pieces....just completely....GONE! 1 of my mining rigs, and my 1st rover used for fuel, ore, and monoprop moving, are both missing. AAAAAANNNNND, I was going to take a screenshot for this post, so I loaded KSP to my last save, went back to Minmus annnnnnd.....another vessel is missing, my second rover just for fuel is now gone. Thinking I'm not liking 1.7 very much. Very few mods loaded (KER, RCS Build Aid, X Science, & Surface Lights). Never seen anything like this before. Here's what is left now: I reloaded my save as I was coming in for final landing with my Fuel Station craft (already missing a rover and ore rig). It almost seems like KSP 1.7 can't keep track of more than 10 objects, including craft and debris. At least, that appears to be what I am seeing so far.

Ha, good times. Seeing that this thread is almost a year old, I can report that yes, I can dock just fine now. Just a few of the reasons that that impeded my progress (aside from practicing a ton): Wasn't fully matching the orbit, hence the "getting close to 50m only to see the craft fly away fast in the other direction." RCS Build Aid was a big help in terms of thrusters. Also, realizing the MK 1-3 command pod had built in RCS, which was throwing off my other thruster tuning. Move faster without engines....it's called reaction wheels.

Today, I played KSP. Actually have for about the past week, but, before then, I probably hadn't played the game in 2-3 months. Finally got back into it this week, starting a DUNA Missions objective. Using NASA and The Martin (yeah, watched that movie again this week so.....), have set some goals for Minmus and the Duna system. Mercury Missions - Unmanned craft to Minmus surface Mercury 1 - Ore Drilling Rig (will likely have 2-3 of these on Minmus surface; one currently in place) Mercury 2 - Resource Scanning Satellite (Mercury 1 into orbit around Minmus first; waited for Mercury 2 to come and scan, and find landing spot). Mercury 3 - Fuel/Ore Transfer Rover - Will move ore from Drill Rigs to Refineries, and from Refineries to Refueling ships. May include 2 rovers (currently one on surface) Mercury 4 - Ore Refinery - will convert Ore to neeed fuels. Mercury 5 - Additional satellites around Minmus to prevent control blackout of unmanned vessels. Mercury 6-10 - Unknown at this point if additional Mercury missions will be needed. Apollo Missions -Manned craft in Minmus orbit Apollo 1 - Surface to Orbit Refueler - Manned ship that will travel to Minmus surface, obtain fuel, and return to orbit to dock with orbital refueling tanker (may have 2 of these) Apollo 2 - Orbital refueling tanker - Manned station that will be positioned in orbit of Minmus; designed to add fuel to ships in later Ares missions to Duna (and beyond?). Apollo 3 - Kerbin Escape Vehicle - Ship stationed on Apollo 2 craft in case there is a need to evacuate the tanker or surface refueling ships. ARES Missions - Manned and Unmanned missions to Duna system ARES 1 - Satellite/Resources Scanner unmanned Duna orbit craft ARES 2 - Satellite/Resources Scanner unmanned Ike orbit craft ARES 3 - Additional communication satellites ARES 4 - Unmanned Duna surface driller ARES 5 - Unmanned Duna surface refinery ARES 6 - Unmanned Duna surface fueling rover ARES 7 - Manned Duna Orbit habitation station ARES 8 - Manned Duna surface to orbit refueling vessel ARES 9 - Manned Duna Orbit fueling station ARES 10-15 missions expected but not planned. At the end of the Mercury, Apollo, and ARES missions, I should be happily exploring Duna, as well as have another stopping point for craft heading to other systems. Mercury 3 Ore/Fuel Rover (obscuring obsolete drilling rig behind solar panel): Mercury 1 Drill Rig (showing landing ring because it is on an incline, and the 6 drills cause it to bounce a bit; planning on moving it about 500m up the slope to a flatter surface soon).

"Hey guys, let's make sure the Flat-Kerbin Society never, EVER sees this photo!" Somewhere on the south Pole of Minmus, Jeb realizes his new Terraforming Ray works "a little too good."

For me, probably about a month after I got the PC version of the game. I had tried the demo years ago, but didn't think my laptop was powerful enough to really play it. It ended up being released for XBOX 360, so I bought that version. Never really made it that far....mostly Kerbin orbits and some Mun missions....maybe 1 or two Minmus flybys. I wasn't very efficient with my rockets. Last year, I heard a new, revamped version was coming out for XBOX One. While impatiently waiting for the Enhanced Edition for XBOX (which I still bought, too), I finally broke down in November 2017 and bought the PC version. Best decision I ever made. Anyways, about a month or two into the PC version, as I really started to do things the right way (like not launch rockets straight up to orbit), I had a lot of trouble with docking. So Docking Port Alignment Indicator was the first mod I broke down and installed. KER followed shortly thereafter, then a few others like RCS Build Aid, Surface Lights, and [x] Science.

I finally got mine working with the load to menu, quit, load again method (after uninstalling, pulling some mods, etc). The new lander can has a round, lander variant (similar to what we are used to) and a rectangle-ish rover variant. I don't recall any other part using variants in that manner (different shape instead of different color). I guess engine shrouds would maybe be in that same line....maybe.

I had manually removed all mods folders. Just moved them to a backup folder structure on a different drive. I also made copies of the Saves, Craft, and Flags folders, since I had user specific data there that would be lost on an uninstall. When I chose uninstall KSP from Steam, it still left the steamapps\common\Kerbal Space Program\ directory, and a few sub directories. I would have to try another uninstall to see exactly what it left behind, but, it was folders related to the KSP game (I want to say Parts, Plugins, PlugInData....can't remember if it left any part of the GameData folder). It was quite odd to me that it left these things behind.

Yes, I did both. Didn't help. I finally got it working after uninstalling through steam, then completely removing any additional folders in the KSP directory under steam apps, then reinstalling.

Well, I have removed all mods, and backed up my custom flags, saves, and craft, and uninstalled/reinstalled KSP. Still broken. I do believe there were some files that Steam didn't uninstall (including possible remnants of module manager), so I am no on my 2nd uninstall reinstall attempt, this time making sure the whole KSP directory in steam is gone.

@manek22 I do have docking port alignment mod. I'll give that a shot. Appreciate your feedback.

I'm having the same issue. If you right click MK2 lander can, you get this weird variant slider bar repeated like 30 times. I also see that, in an existing game, craft that already have MK2 Lander Can as a part are now seeing it as an invalid part. After reading this thread, I tried the verify files in steam. Very first time it said 2 files corrupted and would be reacquired. Ran KSP. Same issue. What now seems to happen is, when the issue occurs, Steam will say 1 file corrupted and being reacquired. I can close steam after that, reopen, re-verify, and I get no errors. I run KSP, the issue occurs, go back to Steam, and it again says 1 file corrupted and will be reacquired. I also tried deleting the PartsDatabase.cfg file at games root, per the suggestion of another mod. That also did not help. I've been through 4-5 version upgrades of the game, and this has never happened on any other update.

Thanks for trying to help @Snark . Unfortunately, that didn't help either. It is very strange. When I see the problem, I go into Steam, Verify the file, and it says 1 file corrupted or something and it will reacquire the file. I can completely shutdown Steam after doing that, open it back up, run Verify files, and it says everything is good. No file issues. I run KSP, see the issue. Quit KSP, run Verify again, and it again will say 1 file corrupted. Think I started off on 1.4 or somewhere in that range, and have never seen an issue like this in 4-5 version upgrades. Very odd.