Aeroboi

What bewing suggested can be done of course, only if your quicksave is miles away from a lunar interception. If your plummeting into the inner solar system from Jool you can intercept the Mun and use precise node mod to fine tune so the slingshot makes you hit the atmosphere while losing 100+ m/s or so. But you have to intercept the mun from the proper angle to have a effect. Question: which parts heat up? If it's a specific part then perhaps you can shield it by aerobraking in the atmosphere at a specific angle. I know many parts heat up more if they're exposed to a greater frontal cross section. That means that a cockpit nose heats up more if it hits the atmosphere at a attack angle. That is what you would want to slow down. However, if it doesn't have enough stopping power using to little wings the part may overheat. You can do 2 things. pitch and roll while going through the lower atmosphere your aiming for to actuate the vessel in a spin roll to distribute the heat blast over all cross sectional areas. This means you wont have as much stopping power but you will be able to dive in deeper. Best is to use a attack angle and as soon as the heat bar reaches near max you start rolling and pitching. Or... you can activate spoilers on the elevons as soon as the heat bar reaches max and just keep the nose pointed to prograde and use the spoilers as airbrakes to decelerate. This might not be calibrated and lift balance might tumble the vessel, but that should actually be helpful as that would make the vessel actuate automatically and help stopping. The most stopping power while expending Delta-V is when your are closest to Pe with the oberth effect. So if you use the tumble technique and your well inside the atmosphere and you happen to roll in relation to retrograde from time to time then try to use Z and X keys to quikly full and stop throttling when the nose is near retrograde as that would give the most stopping power. Since you'd couple a deeper dive made possible by tumbling, activated spoilers and retro burns near pe in case the nose happens to tumble the proper way then it might be enough to capture into a orbit. If only a few m/s extra are necessary you can always EVA and push the vessel, it may take to much time but it's always doable. Just rotate the vessel flat body to retro grade and EVA push the vessel facing towards kerbin on the Center of Mass. If any of the steps are not reproducable you can fuel flow any left over monoprop or liquid fuel to stabilize the vessel.

I believe it's "T" on the keyboard. You can also click the offset icon in the top left corner and it will change offset between local and absolute shown on the icon.

I often stick MK2 bays underneath the mk3 cargo bay's. Select mk2 fuel tank to mirror symmetry, attach to the hull and move rotate them under the belly. Properly moved they should blend in well to create a nice looking underbelly. Then just put elevon hydrofoils underneath or to the sides. The only design problem is that the CoM isn't through the middle of the cargo bay's so you should play with the engine layout for the proper center of thrust but that's it.

Yes, I don't see it's "mandatory" or logical for "stock" KSP and the OP mentions 3x rescale but that isn't stock KSP. Engine variations should specialize themselves in different ways and a 330-340ISP rapier would be a turboramjet with high isp rocket capabilities doing multiple roles at once. The most economical way is for a SSTO space plane is to be a SSTO. That means it hauls stuff to and from orbit, going elsewhere is less efficient. That means Rapiers by function should should only be used as the rocket part of a space plane to and from orbit. The only other option is sending one to Laythe, but that is the only case whereby you'd use the LV-N anyway, at least, that is the most sensible option. In most circumstances the rapier space plane has 1500-1600m/s velocity until closed cycle mode with burned off fuel it nearly always have enough TWR not to bother coupled with the lift effect. Also, since your close to orbital velocity you have little delta-v needed and at 30-39Km use much of the oberth effect. MECO is suspected to be within 35-45Km depending on space plane flight path. Giving the Rapier a ISP buff would do little to have any effect and it's better to bring a LV-N anyway or use another dedicated vessel with Rhino, poodle or skipper. Adding more thrust also means larger rocket nozzles on the Rapier, while having extended nozzles for extra ISP, so that's 2 Buff's to make it a engine on par and better then many others. Rapier shouldn't be used for VTOL and whiplashes work quite decently, and, gets you to orbit. For VTOL SSTO I typically use as little wings since you have so much more thrust anyway you don't need as much and couple it with some vectors or aerospike's depending on weight.

Minmus can be done easily also. Minmus has a inclination which crosses Kerbins inclination. Zoom out of map view while focused at kerbin to see Minmus orbit line. Set minmus as target and watch the AN/DN lines. You see the An and Dn marked on opposite sides of the Minmus orbit. What you want to do is meet minmus at the AN or DN itself. This can be done easily since it takes about one quarter orbit for minmus to revolve around Kerbin, in the same time it takes a spaceship to meet Minmus orbit from LKO. So determine the AN/DN of minmus relative to kerbin orbit and launch your vessel when Minmus is one quarter orbit from AN/DN. Do this the same way as if you were going to the Mun by waiting for Minmus to rise above the horizon and then burn. Makes sure your final orbit reaches a little bit further past Minmus. Quicksave or custom save halfway and see if your aproach was correct. If Minmus takes to long to catch up while you get there reload and increase your burn on the prograde by a few m/s and see if you'll meet up the 2nd time. Also verify if your AN/DN is spot on at arrival once getting there. Minmus is very small but it's very far away from Kerbin so it has a relatively large SOI considering it's size, as long as you'll enter the SOI you have the navigational aids to do a landing, by most cases shouldn't cost much more in fuel then using a maneuver node.

Jet speed involves 3 things. Jet thrust! Aerodynamics! and Wing incidence. Jet thrust should be about 15Ton per Whiplash, you can do up to 25 Ton but then you are tweaking every optimization there is so stick to 15Ton. Aerodynamics: Use as few stacks as possible. One stack is a single end to end fuselage. Try to use only tapered ends like 1.25 to 2.5m or 0.625 to 1.25m. Dont put external parts unto the plane except wings, landing gear and a ladder (optionally) all the rest in cargo bays or you suffer drag and wont achieve the speed you want. Wing incidence is the angle of the wing versus the chord line. Using the rotation tool in the editor you can rotate the wing so that it moves slightly up at a incline. This means the plane does not need the same pitch, or none at all so it can keep the nose staying at prograde for reduced drag.

They'd say : "I play with near and FFT" or say "I play with FAR and FFT" and never mention far in the first place. And almost nobody uses Near by reading posts, perhaps I'm wrong It is indeed a large mod, when is Nertea to conclude it is finished I don't know. But since it's quite decently packed and near finished it might draw much attention as a pre-release.

I'm playing mostly JNSQ myself. Heavily modded it could prove testification to something more difficult but doable since stock parts in 2.7x work fine.

I'd say go for Mk3 for the carrier with the crane. It isn't the most hydrodynamic, however it has very good crash tolerance of 50m/s and are larger bulky parts. If a crane is used you need some mass in order not to capsize. This means hitting the water or driving out of the water at speed wont ever destroy the vessel. Stage activated Vector engines are the best sinkable parts. That means a Vector that is staged sinks faster then one that isn't staged? What?? Yeah, what indeed Out of all the ore tanks the radial one is the densest, so if you want as much heavier then water mass kg for kg you should use those. For submarines the SM-25 making history service module is the most hydrodynamic. It doesn't sink but you can stuff it full of Vectors or ore ballast. It also fits inside the Mk3 cargo bay. Best would be to emerge from the water inside a center mk3 cargo bay with a piston to tow it back into the cargo bay. As for engines, I'd go with the Goliath. 2 reasons... 1: It is the most efficient. People want to go very fast on water but the faster you want to go the more power you need exponentially so the less distance capable to travel. Building a high quality hydrofoil or small footprint catamaran will be most efficient when coupling with the Goliath. Best is to make a high quality prop for infinite action radius. 2: The other reason is that the Goliath is very buoyant. So if you place them slightly on top of the water it will help with floating and stability. It will slow down the vessel so only use them when peed is not your goal.

You don't need to install them manually. You can download and use CKAN. Also the actual dependencies for realism overhaul are smokescreen, real fuel, real heat, real chutes and advanced jet engines . The mod page was written for back in year (what?) Kerbal joint reinforcement is substituted with the in game autostruts system since then. But KJR can still be used optionally and is easier to use by all means. Ferram aerospace is also optional since we now have real atmospheres. All the other mods listed are optional in any case. You better discard holding on to it and find a collection of part packs that simulate the type of space plane you want that the list shows. Not all of them are up to date and many others work excellent in RSS also like near future mods and KSPIE. Also read mod early and last pages to see if people report using it in RSS for your particular version.

Combined with Realism overhaul people often use RSS. This is the mod that changes planets to real sizes and densities. People also use principia that substitutes patch conics with real newtonian trajectories taking into account tidal forces, different bodies within their combined sphere (no more SOI's) As for realism overhaul, what it exactly does is described detailed at the release page you shared. So go and look there. Most notably it adds a collection of real engine types and the mod page suggests certain mod packs that work well with realism overhaul. It has a few dependencies that make the realism overhaul pack whole. Namely real fuel so the newly added engines don't use LF/O but RP1 or LH2O instead.

Use Rigid attachment on the docking ports. This can be done in flight. Enable advanced tweakables in the main menu general settings to enable that option when right clicking any part (except experiments and batteries)

Real planes for which FBW is created tend not to purposely stall and thus fall backwards, ever. So why the comparison? Since FBW is created for actual planes and not KSP the point is moot. If you are intending to stall your ksp plane to fall backward your playing the game wrong and false FBW inputs are of consequence. AFAIK when a emergency happens beyond a specific flight plan it disengages the autopilot. The more modern the FBW is on such craft the more safety measures it has in that regard. But even all functions aren't present on dedicated payware flight sim aircraft so why babble about the perfect details when a potential new FBW autopilot version is logically a simple one. More or less a Gramax version with added tweaks, easier UI perhaps and a stock skin. KSP's legacy is stock alike simple features with expectation of low level intuition. If your FBW errors when stalling and falling backwards you should disengage the autopilot, not ask for sophisticated code to make it do automatic switching miracles.

My idea was inspired by the inner lock mod. The problem with stock docking ports is that if you decouple you require to be some distance away for the docking port to re-activate. Some people dislike this because you want to re-dock a mechanism, even with the new parts that may still be useful. Instead, deactivate stock docking ports and then have a context menu option to re-activate the docking port at will with toggle on/off action group options.

Since I never use them I come across the fact that the Sabre engine produces less thrust in closed cycle compared to airbreathing. In airbreathing I get about 1100kN of thrust but when changing to closed cycle it produces 800kN of thrust. According to the engine stats that is supposed to be exactly right. I'm used to rapiers where closed cycle produces more thrust, so is the only method adding extra engines or is there a trick I'm unaware of like taking a prerequisite flight path? If additional engines are used may you recommend which ones from whatever mod pack as long as they're modern or near futuristic?

You could also get a plane to the peak. If you can build a stratolauncher but bigger for your rocket you could get it to the peak with a use to make it stand upright. It's not for everyone as it may prove difficult but it could be your option. Just make sure you Hyperedit test from that altitude to see what works. There is also something called a space elevator mod using a 100m elevator you could use. I believe you can make it larger using tweakscale also. This way you can lift the rocket up the top and launch it from there.

I know that if you accept the other type of contracts like part tests, aerial and ground survey's they will pop up much more often. For some reason part tests always remain and survey contracts always expand upon newly visited places. So if you go to the Mun first you always have those contracts available IIRC. That means you want to do the ground breaking contracts up to the Mun first. If you opt to do the main contracts first I often find I get a healthy balance that always includes the rescue contracts if you have the proper facility upgrades. I believe I ran stuck in doing multiple early survey's and then complained I didn't got the rescue contracts that I expected should spawn. When not fulfilling the survey contracts but doing all the others should clear room, by all means clearing the survey contracts should only increase it's spawn rate further.

Good comparison on the Mastodon <> Mainsail. Maybe get a Mainsail upgrade as soon as you get the Mastodon, but by the looks of it that means the mainsail needs a re-balance altogether with some whereabouts related to it's current stats so it isn't rendered a entire different engine. I use the 1.875m engines on 1.25m nodes only if they're in fairings since 1.875m engines without trusses on a 1.25m node still create added drag. On 8 asparagus landers using 8 x 1.875m engines on 1.25m nodes you can see this effect and without a fairing may even create aero balancing problems since these are landers often that are on the top. So I think it's mandatory to have good operating 1.25m engines with high tier stats for the 1.25m nodes.

I very much agree with this. And 1.25m engine options are lacking on the higher tiers. the 260-270/310-320 Reliant/Swivel ISP ranges prove to be very low tech. Where the reliant boasts better Thrust and Sea level ISP it's part upgrade would ultimately greatly enhance the Reliant's Sea level ISP and thrust. I wouldn't make it that much lighter because the thrust to weight off a reliant or Swivel isn't that bad to begin with. The terrier on the other hand is purely a Vacuum engine but has quite the weight so a part upgrade could definitely lower the weight and slightly improve the Vacuum ISP by 5 but no more as that would make it unrealistic since a max of 355-360ISP seems the most balancing game wise. Besides the kodiak (almost a 2nd Reliant stats wise) the Vector is the only other 1.25m engine, but to my view and dislike it's OP to begin with so doesn't need stats boost. What I make of this is that in the 1.25m category there are no high stat engines. While the Terrier is a good upper stage the Vector is OP and the other engines are ancient. I wouldn't mind the Skipper and Mainsail have upgrades aswell since they could perform better also. Also, if parts are to be upgraded prices should remain the same. Rocket parts didn't become cheaper because they're made cheaper but because there are made more of them and when they are made cheaper they are almost always made by large so it's the productions amount that factors in how much a engine would cost. That's mainly why parts got cheaper over the decades. No such elements are part of the game, only static prices. Usually a rocket should remain the same price or be cheaper or people wont want to use that rocket. So a revised engine that costs more would usually be another engine.

Circuit breakers, snacks cupboard, shower cabin, seat height and seat incline. Switches to turn on/off MFD's. Then you have a pilot and copilot copies of the same switches plus a double one for each circuit breaker if one fails. You need this on long flights, it's not a mistake. If anything, the kerbal pods are more sophisticated with more automated functions so doesn't require the amount seen in real air planes. If a actual IVA more sophisticated then rasterprop monitor would be introduced I can imagine more knobs, buttons and switches would be present. Also, on modern or prototype command pods everything is remote controlled or fly by wire so it isn't ancient like on many old still existing airplane cockpits so the comparison is rather off IMO.

Give people the option. It's a little mechanic. Stuff already explodes, so no extra mechanic needed. Just a auto:off setting in the main menu for part failures with a clever configuration formula = no time spent and a few happy faces. Obviously the static failure rate should be very low. The best way of doing it, have a 1% failure rate that any part on the ship fails, with a by-percentage to certain parts like engines having a higher chance of failing after launch. Then add a static formula of further failing of 1% every 1 through 10 year(s). It doesn't have to be that difficult That means having a slider to further calibrate the occurrence rate. Sophisticated version Add code to it so that if a engine fails the fuel tanks also fail and explode with it as that type of failure is supposed to simulate a combustion failure. Think of any other types of failures that are known and add code to simulate it. For instance, if a fuel tank of another stage leaks on top of the firing stage it should leak the tanks of that stage and have reaction forces of the leaking fluid disrupting the flight path. Have reaction wheels shutdown. By-effect it's a low chance to disrupt reaction wheel torque by breaking them allowing it do be considered a actual saturated stock ksp reaction wheel due to failure Failure to open solar panels (or retract them which means anytime you do want, requires engineer to fix) Also have command pod control torque fail or have batteries fail. Maybe allow engineer's to fix any damage as long as they bring a certain amount or "ore" depending on the part which is damaged to fix it or salvage such a craft to be recovered.

Your relativation seems to accurately put the current Juno at the right spot, albeit that you seem to radiate you aren't much fan of it. Comparing to a SR--71's J-58 a Junkers Jumo 004 is ancient, thus that is the expectation in performance difference logically. The Juno is a low tech turbofan. What Squad did with the numbers is probably a little illogical. Haven't thought through if it's one of their strategic balancing acts that has a Squad illogical explanation that makes it a high bypass turbojet instead of a turbofan in actual sense. Maybe that's what's to argue about. I love creative Juno SSTO's, difficulty wise they're already viable and shouldn't be made more easy. I know as I created some. Why not recommend another 0.625m jet engine while we're at it, like for instance a proper "Turbojet" with more thrust obviously since that's a logical consequence..... Since the Juno is the only 0.625m jet engine the recommendation would be another. I agree on the aerospike regardless, why not, it's not out of any realm. Certainly it seems more balancing. Besides tiny Eve stages (otherwise thrust is to low and vectors, mammoths and Twin boar's are of choice) aerospikes are usually spent on eve rocket space planes or Kerbin SSTo Hybrid space planes so this tweak will allow aerospike configurations to allow more versatility in Eve and Kerbin rocket/spaceplanes and to my liking the current model leaves little trickery to make full use of the aerospike. In any case, something should be done to them as there's little necessity ever using them besides those instances mentioned besides any uses I'm aware off. I'm for part upgrades. As you say these early rocket engines become obsolete, however they do function as proper 1.25m engines. Squad is to assume people would only use 1,875m, 2,5m and 3.75m engines on later techs or sandbox so they keep the 1.25m engines low tech (apart form the Vector which is OP, HUH?). This certainly is a mistake. Without further adding parts a part upgrade function to upgrade early to mid tech parts to higher performance values seems gamey and understanding. Most of the early to mid tech engines fulfill a key role on 1.25m stacks and they are left to 3 choices mostly, the Terrier, Swivel and the Reliant. Only the Terrier seems to have proper performance ISP wise to be considered mid/high tech but only in vacuum so a part upgrade to boost it's Sea level ISP somewhat should be a gamey part upgrade if I say so. It would never ruin the entirety of the game as any later tech parts would still be better suited. A Terrier would then be better suited as a mid/high atmospheric 2nd stage engine with a little more weight perhaps of 0.65Ton.

@bewing Exactly! @kenedos Plus you have to make sure that the attachment of your cargo or parts inside are attached to the exact cargo bay inline node, that is not to the surface of the bay itself and then dragged. Looking at the picture you have the command chairs far away from the inline cargo. I assume they're attached to the cargo bay floor itself? Make sure you attach them to the inline cargo, then hold LEFT or RIGHT SHIFT + LMB to drag them far away from it's grandparent part if you want the seats situated at the same spot as they're now without editing the cargo. Also make sure all other parts are attached to that inline setup and not dragged from another place. I have the experience that re-installing the cargo by removing it and then reattaching it to the node again can solve the problem if this issue persists. I'm not sure what leads up to it. I do sometimes take of the cargo bay in the editor with the payload attached accidentally to another node or I attach it with "allow part clipping in editors" enabled (cheat menu option) which can cause a attachment to attach wrong, for instance, have the cargo attached to a inline fuel tank node or when attaching the cargo bay over the cargo instead of attaching the cargo inside the bay. These situations can cause the cargo to be calculated outside the cargo bay.

It's the WarpPlugin Folder. Luckily there was a cfg fix posted in the KSPIE thread so I can still use the WarpPlugin. Apparently it's a side fix, better óne then none

I have these mods on KSP 1.7.0... I already tried removing a few and will test later. Problem Using any airbreathing engine the "intake air" is unused and sits in the intake itself where the intake air bar is filled up. This shouldn't happen as the intake air should be used. On top of that, the engine will work initially but then fails. The more intakes per each engine the longer it runs from spool up. It seems it knows the intake air is there, it then seems to use the amount of intake air the combined air intakes can provide but then fails due to intake air starvation after that amount is used. The rest of the intake air then sits in the intakes themselves. It's like the game fails to make the engine interact with the intake and some code tells there's a amount of intake air provided from launch but then fails to re-supply from the intake itself after that amount is used up. Opening/closing the intakes doesn't help. I'm pretty sure I want to keep most of all the mods, perhaps any of you is the wiser which combination of mods is messing things up.