Aeroboi

@Tricky14 Why only solar? Isn't the whole idea of driving there by any means possible a achievement in and of itself? Using fuel cells and or jet engines will get you there guaranteed.

No, why? Two of the same capsules just with different looks. If they can create 2 separate paintjobs for the new mk 1 cockpit can't they make 2 different models for a single part? My idea is to keep the original one also. Have a toggle to choose between 2 different versions of the lander can. Just like we have toggle options for engine shrouds we can have the same for a mk1 lander can I reckon.

Don't care much about RT-10 and 5 being changed. I silently wouldn't mind a more modern look to them. Many parts already got that since the evolution of KSP so if KSP is getting more TLC for years to come every part will get updated eventually. But that lander can calamity that you have, I share completely. I never liked it. It simply looks odd on almost anything. I don't mind it being there and would still think it looks ok on some craft like airless landers but I would really like a grey cylindrical version. I also really like the new mk1 cockpit model and the option for a white version. And then those Kerbal suits. I'm on the hypetrain

And another one Let's suppose you want the same fairing shape on all your vessels. You cannot save fairing shapes as subassembly now can you? Maybe not how you'd expect but in fact you CAN! Although it does require you to rebuild the fairing each time. Then reattach the fairing base to any node you want it then build the fairing towards the segment markers (rcs ports) then remove the rcs ports afterwards. I copied several fairings and each of them looked identical and had the same dimensions in the engineers report.

Increase front section heat resistance. I have been working on a efficient Eve ascent vehicle and I was trying to find a way to achieve a specific end goal and through enough testing I succeeded. I tried to find any way if I could make the front sections of my vessel more heat resistant so I could allow myself a sharper and faster gravity turn to minimize the Delta-V requirement for a Eve ascent. It turns out if I attach a normal heatshield (0.625m is all that is required) and then move it outside of the fairing I can drastically increase heat resistance. Of course this turns out to create a lot of drag, however, if you rotate the heatshield vertically it still works and you have none of the drag penalty. In my testing I tried to accelerate a 2.5m stack vessel with a 2.5m fairing on top with 2 vertically rotated heatshields sticking outside the top. I did a speedrun at 500 ASL and without the heatshield trick the fairing and the rest of the vessel would explode just under 1800m/s. With the fairings though I could hit just about 2000m/s before exploding. This is how it should look like.

The reason is so every uneducated yokel can understand and play the game and not be annoyed with 10 minute burns to orbit. Because the "space program" part IS so important it has been resized for this reason. It's better to have masses play this game then a small group of astronautic nerds. I'm not among that group so I wouldn't have learned as much about spaceflight if it were realistically sized the moment I started playing it. I also would never got into learning Orbiter Space flight Sim if it hadn't started with KSP and knew even less. Alternative suggestion I do like propellers. But I like the "build" aspect of this game. What I would like is something like a stackable motor/engine piece that is throttleable and stock 1 part bearings with which you can create your own propellers plus a variety of cogs and springs. With that you can also make gravity rings, impellers, peddle wheels, custom wheels, caterpillars and you name it. And preferably some way for the physics engine to allow more then 45 rads per second without kraken physics shredding the game so stock propellers can go faster. Besides that ^ Stock propellers already make planes fly faster then real life propellers can go anyway. That said, you have to be a master stock propeller engineer to do so but everything one wants to suggest is already possible. There's the limit of aeronautic utilities because this is a "Space program" It's already glorifying enough to be able to build your own propeller. Squad has not modified or done something to prevent stock bearings. They could by putting friction on thermometers, stayputniks, ball bearings (Place anywhere rcs port) but they haven't. It's as if Squad is saying, "You want propellers in stock?" "We got that for you" "Now put your hands in your hair be a genius and make one for yourself" Go to https://kerbalx.com/ Search on (Stock > SPH > Aircraft) and find many stock propellers you can DL from which to learn and make your own

A amphibious sea snake full of green landlubbers

Would this be sufficient to enter? (279 parts) It's a very sturdy 1048 crew highspeed ampibious vehicle. Does about 100m/s in water before she takes off automatically. The native angle of the rear horizontal stabilizer lifts her behind out of the water to ignore most of the drag. This means she can maintain almost the same speed at the same throttle as if she were flying. It's basically a reversed ekranoplan but achieved differently then ground effect which of course doesn't exist in KSP. Here's a better picture that shows it. https://kerbalx.com/Aeroboi/Kilobus-A1080

Whenever I need long landing legs I tend to use anything structural that looks nice and make a tintin construction in 3 or 4 way symmetry that extends far enough down and then attach the legs to it. I do agree we need bigger landing legs/gear though. We now have 5m parts. And I think @SQUAD knows very well most community players like to strap supporting legs to enormous vessels. Tintin solutions also don't look right on just every vessel. That said, combining structural parts to extend the legs can be done in a large variety of ways. So I also advice anyone blaming the lack of legs and gears to try and be creative and see what you can make with the parts available because I'm sure there is more to create then you've currently thought of.

I play X-plane and I can confess it runs beautifully. Many nautical miles distanced from a FX-8350. Glad you make this upgrade.

I remember me using that mod which is when I first started using the LES at all. So far I'm more annoyed by part failures but that is me. I can conclude also that for some crew compartment(s) a stronger version would be needed. Perhaps a 1.875 or 2.5m version is a sound request. I can imagine you could create 1.25m attachments to add more but that just doesn't look right.

You got the 8086K? I only have the 8700K Time to get a new job... It's funny how the rest of your hardware is almost identical to mine, although my ram isn't clocked that high

I really enjoyed that. That are terrifically cool vehicle designs

Can you better explain what you are trying to suggest? Concerning that specifically ^ AFAIK the launch escape system is a real world replica and the idea behind is that it fires as the capsule decouples to get the astronauts away from a dangerous situation. There's no specific direction to go besides getting away from the spacecraft ASAP. Whether if fires you horizontal depends on where you are in the trajectory of your rocket launch. If the launch escape system fails at launch it launches you vertical. And if you desperately want to create a horizontal motion you can use the capsules reaction wheels to steer you away after it fires. I wouldn't want anything in the game that adds parts without a very clear reason since added parts will put extra load on physics calculations. It's best to have 1 system or utility in a single part. I personally never use the launch escape system. That is not to say others don't but I do think it is a part less used and not the most popular around so I'm not sure how many people would want to add to it. Unless there's something wrong with it or something to be gained. But I hope to understand in what way if you care to explain your idea a bit more thorough.

Yes of course. On eve it matters a lot more so there's a lot more to gain if you optimize the ascent rocket. The margins for Laythe and Kerbin are a lot smaller because there's less atmosphere to travel through. But on i.e. Kerbin you can also make orbit with 3050-3200 m/s instead of the recommended 3400 dv. It just isn't profitable to do this because you need a lot of TWR. That means you need more engines which equals more funds cost and less Dv in orbit to do other maneuvers. Dv also doesn't necessarily mean much on Eve because you want the highest payload for the lowest cost which doesn't always mean that a low dv rocket is better. Payload fractions on Eve are low because you throw away more rocket then on any other place so cheap parts with more weight and more Dv can be more profitable. I just had to make my pointers because the 8k estimate seems bogus IME. I find high thrust and aerodynamic rockets do very well on Eve. Although it is a pain to get the right engine combination to achieve it. I'm not sure why 8k Delta-V is a generally accepted number for Eve. The rockets I created to lift off of Eve have always been 5.5-7k and never towards 8k. IIRC the 8k number was first introduced in the early 1.0.x versions and Squad have tweaked aerodynamics over the versions thereafter. Kerbin and Laythe estimates are expectedly closer because drag and gravity losses are much less of a concern at those places.

I've seen a video of Laie's vehicle and the aerospike stage is already reasonably well above the atmosphere so the Mk-1 cockpit reaction wheel torque is sufficient. Also, if the gravity turn is optimal your at prograde and there's little required to keep it oriented.

11K dv is old pre 1.0 dv requirement information. Today the Dv chart says 8K dv. If you search online you find this newer Dv chart. But truth be told, 8k dv is bogus also. It's just a estimate number thrown in for whatever average variety of rockets a player could make. The short answer is that there is no clear requirement in Dv needed. A efficient Eve ascent lies in optimized Aerodynamics to increase the ascent vessels terminal velocity. A higher terminal velocity would mean that it can go faster through air with the same thrust. So if you have a very aerodynamic rocket you have a higher terminal velocity so you can increase your TWR. The more TWR you have the more rapidly you go faster. This means you get out of the thicker atmosphere faster which means less time wasting fuel on aerodynamic and gravity losses. It also means you can do your gravity turn sooner because your allowed to go a lot faster on a lot lower altitude which in turn also means you spend less Dv on gravity losses because of it. My result is that I can get a vessel into orbit for less then 5800 Dv from 200m ASL https://imgur.com/a/Zc6s7nB But the truth is, that's likely not the lowest amount of Delta-V either, although I'm sure you can't really go a full leap lower. So there is no specific requirement in Delta-V. The Delta-V with which you can do it depends on the factors I explained. All this is not to say that optimizing aerodynamics and TWR is easy in and of itself. Especially if you have never done this before. If you can pull it of at all then you've passed a major challenge.

lol Good point, that made me consider going for Minmus first. I tend to use a lot of spaceplane ssto's to recover my launch costs. Of course this challenge demands lowest launch cost and have therefore overlooked the available options. I wish I thought about the LFB twin boar a lot sooner. it's about the same cost of a vector with twice the thrust + a lot of fuel only with slightly less ISP. I'm probably going to remake a more efficient vessel using them.

W.I.P. I have been working on a few lander lander designs over the weekend. I can still get the weight down a bit I guess on the current iteration. I thought to post the progress of it here first in hopes to motivate everyone to try and do the same. @Laie On 'normal' difficulty or the career difficulty you play at, how much does that contract earn? One should be able to keep it below a million funds I reckon or there around. So maybe these contracts aren't as preposterous as one might think especially if you couple them with eva, flag and other surface or around Eve mission contracts. My idea is to fuel feed all the stages of the lander to the bottom engines, attach a few drop tanks from launch at Kerbin to give it a little bit more Delta-V of the pad with the intention to use the entire lander as a ascent stage from Kerbin to Eve so I will need less rocket to get it to Eve and then mine and refuel the whole thing at the Evian surface. Then I use a return rocket left in Eve orbit to transfer the ore and kerbals to Gilly and then back to Kerbin. I reckon that will be the most efficient way to do this. I probably finish this project by at least next weekend, maybe sooner. Probably over the weekend as I intend to record it. I'll keep it posted Here's a album showing the Eve sea level ascent https://imgur.com/a/Zc6s7nB edit: I did forgot to pin the Ore containers until mid way thru the flight so they're visible from the 11th picture.

@Ezriilc Reading both issues at a quick glance they both seem identical to what I'm getting. I'm not at home now but if I haven't edited this post 6 hours from now I confirm. Furthermore, I may have been to quick in one of the test where I forgot to orbit the body first. I do know about this being a recommendation. But I also know I did orbit the body first during a few tests yesterday. It may explain why the eastward behavior happens only 'sometimes' as I already pointed out. The other times the movement was very slow while the ship animation behaved erratically. Maybe there's nothing really serious with that going on after all. This I probably should test to be sure when I get home.

@NewtSoup You can also go to main menu > settings > general settings and checkbox "Advanced Tweakables" Then use autostrut to strengthen all the joints. You do this by right clicking any part of the vessel and press "autostrut" It then toggles between 3 modes. "Heaviest Part", "Root Part" and "Grandparent Part" A orange lines will show where a part is then strutted to when toggling through these options. Using Heaviest part is useful to select for a part that is far away from the heaviest part so that the vessel is stiffened over the whole length. So a cockpit on one end could be autostrutted to "heaviest part" that is then connected to a largest fuel tank or heaviest engine on the other side of the craft. Consequently autostrutting "root part" on the other side of the craft where engines are (away from the root part which is usually the cockpit) will stiffen it also. Using both Root and Heaviest part on boosters, drop tanks or side mounted hardware will make them unwobbly. Using Grandparent part is best used to any part directly attached within a stack. Or, any part that is directly sidemounted to that stack. That means any part within a serial stage (all the parts on the main fuselage of a rocket or plane) Also grandparent radially attached parts like decouplers and the tanks or parts directly attached to that decoupler but usually not the other parts within that sidemounted stage. These are better used as "Heaviest" or "Root" to stiffen that parallel segment. Never use Heaviest or Root autostrut on vessels you intend to dock as the struts will then change to the root or heaviest part of the other vessel and physics problems may occur. Only use grandparent autostrut on such vessels.

IIRC it doesn't work like that in real life. But I'm not sure of all that is possible so I might be wrong. It would be nonsensical anyway because if you need more range you just get a bigger antenna. Regardless, it doesn't work like that in KSP. One antenna has a specified strength and range. Just as in real life you would want to get a bigger one. In real life there is signal delay. So vessel controls and instrument inputs were transmitted in advance based on the precalculation of the probes orbit. If you install the remote tech mod this signal delay function will be simulated. KSP commnet is simple. If you really want to know all about it you can read this https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/CommNet For a interplanetary probe you want a relay satellite around Kerbin and a Satellite dish on the probe. But because the satellite around Kerbin can also be on the other side of Kerbin you want several satellites that relay to one another around Kerbin to make sure your probe can always connect with the KSC. To create full relay coverage there are 2 ways. The 1st way is simple. Just send a dozen satellites into a high kerbin orbit that all have 3 dishes on them. That way your bound to always have a connection. The 2nd way is more elegant but more tricky. It is much cheaper though. That is to launch 3 satellites around Kerbin in a Semi-synchronous orbit. These are 3 equatorial satellites that have the same orbital period. That means they take the same amount of time to make one orbit around the planet. That means they always stay at the same distance relative to one another. You can use mods such as mechjeb to auto calculate the orbital period. If the orbital periods of all the 3 satellites are similar they shouldn't drift apart. To create a semi-synchronous orbit around Kerbin you want to read this https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Synchronous_orbit

@eatU4myT That's not true. You can't stack antennas of a certain rating to magically extend their range. You only need a minimum of 2 x RA-2 antennas on the relay satellite. 3 if that relay satellite has to connect with other relay satellites around Kerbin which I would advice. So that's one to connect to the KSC, another to connect with another relay satellite around Kerbin and another one to connect with your deep space Evian probe. The probe then also requires a RA-2 or better antenna to connect with the relay satellite (obvious statement) As for your particular scenario, If you do a normal hohmann transfer orbit Eve is always on the same side of the Sun as Kerbin would be by the time you get there. So the RA-2 will suffice. And when you then get there you do your mission lasting a couple of hours so you wont need any connection thereafter. Connection range of a antenna is pronounced in Gm (gigameter: 1 billion meters) or Mm (megameter: 1 million meters) So a 10Gm satellite can connect to a receiver 10 billion meters away, that is 10.000.000 Kilometers. A dish has to connect with a radio receiver on the other end. If the signal becomes to weak it cannot receive that signal. Stacking multiple dishes doesn't help as it's just sending the same weak signal but then multiple times.

@Ezriilc Np. And it isn't life shattering There are more versions of KSP for me to test in using Hyperedit. I do hope this gets fixed soon and that you get the coding support you need.

@Ezriilc It is none of the mods. I copied a fresh install of KSP 1.4.5.2243 (64bit) on Windows and also removed Making history just be sure to rule out it's conflicting also. I also downloaded Hyperedit again and the problem has remained. Whenever I set a current landing location which is then valid I save that location but that location becomes invalid when I want to load it. I tried to save a location on Eve with a latitude close to 0 or somewhere in between -2 and +2. When I load that saved location the latitude box is red and shows a invalid number of 359.999xxx and it refuses to load that location obviously. No matter where I save my landing location it always changes latitude to 359.999xxx when trying to load it. I tried this on Kerbin and Eve. AFAIK this problem is everywhere. When I try to change that latitude close to 0 I can use I,J,K,L but the ship animation behaves erratically and the movement is very slow. Manually editing Longitude doesn't work then, only manually changing latitude works in that circumstance. But that only works after changing latitude from 359.999xxx back to a valid number. Also, when I load a saved landing spot and the latitude changes to 359.999xxx I find 2 scenarios. I'm not sure what triggers either of them in that case. One of them is that I,J,K,L don't work at all. The other case is that all I,J,K,L commands work but the ship only goes eastwards regardless of any of the 4 key presses used. This is what ship lander looks like after I load a landing spot that was formerly valid to land at. When pressing I,J,K,L thereafter this happens. When changing Lat to a valid number I can only edit lat but not lon and every landing location I try to save reloads with the invalid lat number.